Book 

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COPYRfGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION 



I 



THE 

Religion of the Incarnation 



Short Practical Papers on 
Doctrinal Subjects 



BY THE REVEREND 

CHARLES FISKE, B.D. 

Rector of St. John's Church, Somerville, N. J., and Examining Chaplain to the 
Bishop of New Jersey 



With Commendatory Note by the 
Bishop of New Jersey 



MILWAUKEE 
THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 
1905 



UBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 24 1905 

^ Copyright Entry 
cuss (X XXc. No. 
COPY B« 



COPYRIGHT BY 

THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 
1905. 



COMMENDATORY. 



THE author of this volume, "The Eeligion of the 
Incarnation/' has aimed to present in popular 
form, free from technicalities, some of the great 
foundation truths of Christianity, as they are related 
to the life of man here and hereafter. 

The book has been a growth. Some of the papers 
were written for The Living Church and other 
periodicals, some were given as addresses for men's 
Bible classes, or as lectures for a chapter of the 
Brotherhood of St. Andrew; but all cluster round the 
great fact of the Incarnation. The author's fitness for 
the literary part of his task is made manifest by the 
purity and simplicity of his style, while his scholarship 
is equally shown in his clear enunciation of the 
Church's teaching in her Creeds. 

The book is free from controversy, and will be a 
great boon to the lay people, who are not learned in the 
science of theology. Divine truths are set forth clearly 
and strongly "in a tongue understanded of the people" 
— and few, I imagine, will question the conclusions 
reached. For the clergy, too, the book will be found 
useful as a help in training candidates for Confirma- 
tion, or in meeting and solving doubts and difficulties 
that often trouble honest seekers for the truth. 



vi 



THE RELiaiOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



Whether or not every conclusion reached may be ac- 
cepted, all must own the charity and sweet reasonable- 
ness of the book, and in the practical application of 
the truths presented will be seen an earnest desire to 
make clear some of the deep things which belong to 
God as they touch human life. 

The book will speedily gain favor, and I predict for 
it a large circulation as its worth becomes known. It 
covers a wide field and discusses a great variety of sub- 
jects about which multitudes are asking questions 
every day. The language of the schools (which is 
adapted only to scholars or specialists) too often serves 
only to darken counsel for the ordinary reader. Hap- 
pily the author has written for no special class, but for 
all sorts and conditions of men — and that simply, and 
I may add entertainingly. The book is an interesting 
book. TThile there are not lacking the marks of exten- 
sive reading and deep study, the thoughts are clothed 
in language of such beauty and simplicity that the 
reader finds it easy and pleasant reading. 

In commending the work, I cannot forego the pleas- 
ure of a word personal as to the author himself. He 
has been a true and loyal son in the Faith from his 
youth up. His entire ministry, with the exception of a 
year or so, has been passed in this diocese, where heas 
laboring with great success, and where he is greatly 
loved and honored by all who know him. I have 
watched his career with something of a father's in- 
terest, and unless I am greatly mistaken, those who 
read this book carefully, will desire more of the fruits 
of his pen. Johx Scarborough, 

Trenton, Xew Jersey. Bishop of New Jersey. 



PREFACE. 



THE papers here brought together were, most of 
them, prepared as addresses to adult Confirmation 
classes. They are intended to be popular and untechnieal 
expositions of the Church's teaching of the doctrines 
of Christianity — not too simple and popular, however, 
for they were addressed to men and women who were 
willing to do some thinking for themselves. 

The writer believes that doctrinal teaching can be 
made both interesting and helpful. Whether he him- 
self has succeeded in making it so, he cannot tell; but 
he has tried, at any rate. 

Two thoughts run through the papers, thoughts 
which were always in the mind of the writer, though 
not always directly expressed: 

(1) That every doctrine of Christianity has its 
bearing on life, and is to be preached and taught be- 
cause of this its practical value. It is worse than 
useless to lecture on dogma, if any suspicion exists 
in the minds of the hearers that the doctrine is a mere 
shibboleth or is in any way divorced from life. But if 
every article of the Creeds affects our attitude towards 
God and the world, and so influences our daily conduct. 



viii THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



a right understanding of tlie doctrine is of inestimable 
importance, because right belief means right living. 
In these papers, creed and conduct go hand in hand. 

(2) Of all doctrines, the truth of the Incarnation, 
as the foundation stone of the Christian faith, is most 
full of practical value. It will explain and illumine 
many other mysteries, and will always give a clue to 
the solution of the problems and difficulties of our 
modern religious life. 

The book is published in the hope that it may prove 
suggestive in the preparation of Confirmation classes, 
either as a basis for the instructions or in private study 
by those who are unable to come to the general class 
meetings. 

It would be impossible to note at every turn one's 
indebtedness to others in the preparation of such papers 
as these; but the author wishes especially to thank two 
former members of the faculty of the General Theolog- 
ical Seminary, Dr. Cady and Dr. Walpole, for whose 
inspiring teaching he is glad to record his gratitude 
here. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. — Creed and Conduct - - i 

II. — Why I Believe in God 7 

III. — The Holy Trinity - - 15 

IV. — The Divinity of Jesus Christ - - - - 23 
V. — The Incarnation of Our Lord - - - - 30 

VI. — The Incarnation and the Love of God - 38 

VII. — The Incarnation and God's Personality 43 

VIII. — The Incarnation and God's Presence - 49 

IX. — Sin and the Fall 55 

X. — The Atonement 63 

XL — The Holy Spirit, the Life-Giver - - - 71 

XIL — Why Should I Belong to a Church ? - - 79 

XIII. — How Shall I Choose a Church? - - - 93 

XIV. — The Church the Extension of the 

Incarnation 108 

XV. — The Sacraments: the Incarnation 

Applied 118 

XVI. — The Baptismal Gift 126 

XVIL — Infant Baptism 136 

XVIII. — The Holy Eucharist: A Sacrifice - - 145 

XIX. — The Holy Eucharist: Communion - - 153 



X THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION^. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

XX. — The Holy Eucharist: The Real Pres- 
ence 159 

XXL — Preparation for Holy Communion - - 167 

XXII. — Confession and Absolution - - - - - 175 

XXIII. — The Christian Priesthood 186 

XXIV. — The Apostolic Succession 196 

XXV. — Confirmation and Other Sacraments - 206 

XXVI. — The Bible and Its Inspiration - - - - 212 

XXVIL— Some Bible Problems 221 

XXVI II. — The Certainty of a Future Life - - - 229 

XXIX. — The Proof of the Resurrection - - - 235 

XXX. — The Condition of the Faithful Departed 243 

XXXL — The Intermediate State 253 

XXXIL— Heaven and Hell 261 

XXXIIL— The Angelic World 271 



I. 



CREED AND CONDUCT. 

THESE papers will deal with some of the doc- 
trines of Christianity. Do not close the book 
at once and throw it aside^ as soon as yon have read 
that sentence. There will be people who find them- 
selves tempted to do that. "Doctrine they will 
exclaim^ indignantly and impatiently. "We want 
none of it. It is enough for ns that a man is trying 
to live a good life^ no matter what his belief may be 
— at leasts it is enough if he believes in Jesus Christ 
as our example of all that is best and truest in human 
living. Let us have more of the simple faith of the 
Gospel^ and less of the barren dogmas of the Church. 
This age is impatient of doctrine^ and rightly so; 
it demands conduct, character, life. Dogmas are of 
no conceivable use for the plain, every-day man in 
the street, battling with the problems and tempta- 
tions that surround him; if you are going to insist 
on doctrine, you will be putting a stumbling-block 



2 THE RELIGIOJsT OF THE INCARNATION. 



in the way of most of iis. After all^ the only right 
Christian standard is that which is based solely on 
conduct/** 

Yes — bnt suppose we regard the doctrines of 
Christianity as a deposit of trnth^ committed by God 
to the Churches care as a sacred trust. Is truth of no 
value? And have we any right to pick and choose 
what we will accept^ without asking whether or not 
the rest may tell ns something we onght to know 
abont God^ or ourselves^ or the world? And sup- 
pose that when we teach dogma we do so because we 
think that what a man believes is as important as what 
he does^ just because as a rule what he does will de- 
pend on what he believes. Suppose^ in other words^ 
that it can be shown that doctrine is of value; that 
one cannot divorce creed and character; that the 
Christian character is really the outcome of the 
Christian creed; and that if we surrender the creed^ 
with its insistence upon the facts of our Lord^s life^ 
by and bye we shall lose the character which sprang 
out of it — then would you call it narrow and illib- 
eral to guard with the closest jealousy every element 
of that truth which leads to salvation ? 

And^ then^ luhat are dogmas? It is always well 
to define terms — What, then, are Christian dogmas? 
Why, simply the logical statement of Christian facts. 
We take for granted that most of those who object to 
doctrine are believers in Jesus Christ, that they ac- 
cept Christ as their Saviour. Let us start there. 
J esus Christ is our Saviour. Well, then, who was He ? 
What was He? Where are we to learn about Him? 



CREED AND CONDUCT. 



3 



How does He bring us the life eternal ? How are we 
to keep it? How does He save us^ and how and 
where are we to receive the benefit of the work He 
has done for ns? These and a hT;indred other ques- 
tions spring np at once^ and Christian dogmas are 
nothing more nor less than the answers to snch 
questions. 

It is quite true that ^^the important thing is to 
follow Christy even though one cannot adequately 
define Him/^^ But it is also true that we have a 
greater incentive to follow Him if we have reached 
the higher conception of His Person. And it is 
equally evident that one who is intensely alive to 
the meaning of Christ^s life for his own soul can- 
not rest satisfied until he has learned all that can 
be known about the Master — what were His relations 
to the Father whom He came to reveal ; on what His 
authority is grounded ; why He may demand our alle- 
giance and our love; whether or not He is an infal- 
lible guide. We must not think that Christian faith 
is simply the ability to declare our conviction that 
Jesus is divine; we are not merely to name His 
Name^ we are to do His will^ walk in His steps^, com- 
mit our souls to His keeping. Yet^ if we are to do 
this, it is inevitable that we ask, ^*^Why must I do it ? 
Who is this Master And the kind of obedience 
we render, and the character of our imitation of His 
life, will depend on how we answer those questions. 

We emphasize doctrine, then, first, because we 



^ Peabody : *'Jesus Christ and the Social Question." 



4 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



cannot ask the simplest questions about Christianity 
without doing so : and second^ because this being the 
fact^ the more we know of the doctrines of the 
Church the more shall we know of Christy and receiv- 
ing in its fulness the truth about Him^ we shall re- 
ceive that which will make our life richer and 
stronger and fuller. If we were to teach doctrine as 
a mere shibboleth^ excluding all who cannot frame 
to pronounce some test word aright^ men could not 
condemn us too strongly; dogma divorced from life 
would be useless — worse than useless. But if the 
doctrines of Christianity are simply the logical ex- 
pression of its facts^ we cannot be rid of creeds^ even 
if we would. 

Stop to think of it a moment^ and it will be plain 
that every doctrine of the Creed has its influence on 
conduct. Our whole thought of the purpose of life 
depends on our grasp of these spiritual realities. 
The conception of God as a moral governor is that 
which gives us a moral standard of action. The con- 
ception of a Future Life gives us support in all our 
perplexities^ for by it we are led to believe that we see 
only a fragment of a vast scheme^ and that injustice, 
oppression^ pain^ and sorrow will be remedied in the 
world that is to come. The conception of the Incar- 
nation teaches us to recognize a new and ineffaceable 
relation between man and man, for if Christ took 
upon Him our human nature, every man, white or 
black, good or bad, saint or sinner, has in him some 
likeness to Christ and is not to be neglected or de- 
spised. The conception of the Trinity tells us that 



CREED AND CONDUCT. 



5 



subordination is consistent with equality^ and that 
it is the glory of the Triune God to be one a 
moral living for and in each other^ in a mutual devo- 
tion such as serves as an example for men/^' The 
conception of the Atonement declares to us the con- 
quest of evil through suffering, tells us of a Christ 
crucified through weakness but living through the 
power of God, and therefore shows us the need of 
self-sacrifice, the moral beauty of a life given for 
others. The conception of the Eesurrection makes 
every part of life important; teaching, as it does, 
the resurrection of the flesh, it impresses on us the 
sacredness of our bodies as well as of our souls. 

So patient investigation will show that no doc- 
trine — if it be rightly maintained — is without a bear- 
ing on conduct. False and imperfect doctrines will 
and must result in lives faulty and maimed, which 
might have been noble and complete. The full 
Church doctrine produces a full moral life. It is, if 
it be translated into action, an inexhaustible spring 
of strength, though if it be held merely as an intel- 
lectual notion it will bring a complete paralysis of 
moral force. Dogma is necessary, then, because dog- 
ma rightly applied is life. 

After all, perhaps it is not so much the preaching 
of dogma men object to, as it is the exaggerated dog- 
matic spirit. There is a difference between dogma 
and dogmatism — the one broad, sane, reasonable, in- 
sisted on as the only safe foundation of helpful, 

2 Mason : "The Faith of the Gospel," 



6 THE EELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



warm-hearted service for God and men; the other 
narrow and sectarian^ often distorting the truth by 
nndnly emphasizing some one principle of the faith 
at the expense of much else that is equally true and 
important. It is dogmatism that arouses opposition 
and dislike — that fashion of presenting doctrine with 
sledge-hammer blowS;, or cramming it down men^s 
throatS;, or insisting upon it for its own sake with 
little or no effort to prove its necessity or its useful- 
ness. Happily^, it is the glory of our own American 
Episcopal Church that she is free from this sectarian 
spirit^ declaring only what is fundamental and allow- 
ing a large liberty in all else. ^^In essentials unity; 
in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.^^ It 
is in this spirit that we are to examine some of the 
chief doctrines of Christianity — hoping thus to give 
a reason for the faith that is in us^ establishing the 
grounds of our belief; and hoping also to show that 
in the full acceptance of these truths lie the richest 
possibilities of life. 



II. 



WHY I BELIEVE IN GOD. 

AN" incident is related of a certain eminent astron- 
omer which shows how men^ in the name of 
reason^ are guilty often of the most irrational con- 
duct. The great scientist had a friend who strenu- 
ously denied the existence and power of God. The 
astronomer had with much care constructed a con- 
cave in miniature^ upon which he represented all the 
planets and stars in their places^ together with their 
evolutions and courses. One day this friend came to 
see him^ and noticing the ingenious piece of work, 
asked, '^o made that?'' 

^^Who made it repeated the astronomer ; ^ Vhy, 
nobody ; it came by chance.'' 

^^Nonsense/' said his friend; ^^really, who made 
it?" 

^*^N"obody/' came the reply again, "it came by 
chance, I tell you." 

"Don't be absurd," was now the response, in irri- 
tation. "Someone must have made it. Why don't 
you tell me who it was ?" 



8 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



Then the astronomer^ turning to his friend^ said: 
^^This poor miniature ^hich I have made to represent 
what God has created in the nniverse yon say cannot 
have arisen from an irresponsible canse ; and yet yon 
tell me that the wonderful and mighty works around 
and above us are a mere fortuitous combination of 
atoms. HoTT do you explain your inconsistency?^^ 

The anecdote will illustrate one of the arguments 
that convince us of the existence of a supreme Cre- 
ator and Euler of the universe. Every effect must 
have had an adequate cause^ and every design must 
have had a designer. TTere I to find a watch^ wonder- 
fully calculated to fulfil the evident purpose of its 
manufacture^ it would be absurd for me to suppose^ 
just because I could not see the maker of it^ that it 
came into existence by a mere chance, that somehow 
the various parts accidentally fell together and fitted 
into each other with perfect correspondence, and by a 
fortunate coincidence were able to mark the passage 
of time. Seeing the watch, noticing the evident de- 
sign in its various parts^ and observing the precision 
with which the mechanism does the thing it was 
manifestly intended to do. I cannot but say^ Surely 
this thing had a maker. It is not by a luckj^ chance 
that the parts have come together and can do what I 
see them doing; someone designed it to do this ; some- 
one made it so that it would accomplish that for 
which it was designed. In other words^ when I see a 
watch I know that there must have been a watch- 
maker. 

N"ow^ in something the same way, when I look at 



WHY I BELIEVE IN GOD. 



9 



the world about me^ when I see its manifold harmony 
of design^ when I realize how perfectly it fulfils that 
design^ I say again^, This also must have had a 
Maker; some One must have brought it into being; 
some One must be responsible for all its wonderful 
perfection of movement^ its correspondence of part 
with part^ its harmony of action with action. 

If I am impelled to this belief when I think of 
the universe as a whole^ much more am I forced to it 
when I examine in detail some one of its myriads of 
marvels. Take^ for example^ the human eye. Could 
anything be more exactly fitted to fulfil the function 
of sight ? Think for a moment of the retina^ which 
receives the impressions from without. It is made up 
of numerous tissues^ forming a sort of mosaic^ one 
square inch of which receives twenty million impres- 
sions^ while sixty million millions of light vibrations 
enter into it every second of time. Each ray must 
act upon but one part of the retina, for unless there 
were some such special arrangement there would be 
no image formed, any more than the light entering 
through an open window forms a picture. Think, 
again, of the functions of the cornea, or of the 
aqueous and vitreous humors, or notice the external 
parts of the organ: the eyebrows are sponges which 
catch the moisture and dust from the forehead; the 
eyelids are a protection against hostile matter; the 
lashes are fans, to keep away dirt and insects. And 
where was the eye made ? when ? how ? It was formed 
in the maternal womb, long before it could be put 
to use, wholly separated by solid barriers from the 



10 THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 

external world. "Witliout those walls was light : with- 
in was forming an organ to perceive the light. It is 
as if in a dark cellar a blind workman should fashion 
a key to a com^Dlicated lock outside. Xow consider 
that the eye is but one of a million wonderful things 
that go to make tip this wonderful world, and you 
will see why we are compelled to believe that the 
universe did not come by chance : it was designed 
and created, and its Creator must be an intelligent 
Being, of infinite wisdom and power. 

Xor must it be supposed that such scientific the- 
ories as. for instance, the Darwinian theory of evolu- 
tion, would invalidate this argument. For Dar- 
winism is merely an explanation of hov: things be- 
came what they are. not necessarily a denial that 
there is a God who gave them their origin, and made 
them capable of progressing from a simple beginning 
into a richer, fuller harmony and growth. 

The word evolution means an ^^unfolding.*^ and 
the evolutionary theory tells how different forms of 
animal and vegetable life have come from other 
forms already in existence. We are not told, however, 
anything about the original germ of matter from 
which these various forms have been evolved. There 
must have been some bit of protoplasm to begin with, 
and it must have been endued with life or it could 
not have developed into all its succeeding forms. 
How. then, did that speck of protoplasm come into 
being ? Whence came the life energy which has since 
been displayed in the things that have come from it ? 
If God created the original germ and gave it the 



WHY I BELIEVE IN GOD. 



11 



spark of life, He is the Creator of everything that 
has sprung out of it, no matter how the process of de- 
velopment was carried on, or what forces have affect- 
ed succeeding forms of life that are traced back to 
this original. Evolutionists themselves will grant 
this. Herbert Spencer, for example, says that we 
know nothing of the beginning of the universe, and 
that '^'^the production of matter out of nothing is the 
real mystery.^^^ Darwin, too, has placed on record 
in his Life and Letters his belief that ^^the theory of 
evolution is quite compatible with the belief in a 
God.^^* Asa Gray, the great botanist, spoke of him- 
self as ^^one who is scientifically, and in his own 
fashion, a Darwinian, philosophically a convinced 
theist, and religiously an accepter of the creed com- 
monly called the Nicene as the expression of the 
Christian faith.^^ 

Let us take an example to show the reasonable- 
ness of this position. We have just used as an illus- 
tration of God^s wonderful power the existence of the 
human eye. If now it is discovered that this mar- 
vellous sight-mechanism was not formed with all its 
present properties, but was originally a membrane so 
made that it has developed into an eye, does that make 
the old argument antiquated and obsolete? Not at 
all — the wonder seems even greater when we ask. 
What must He be who could endow a simple mem- 
brane with such possibilities of change? Is Paley's 
old example of design in the watch (which we used 

3 "First Principles," p. 34. 

* "Life and Letters," vol. i., p. 307. 



12 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



above) any the less valid^ if we discover that instead 
of being made at once and coming from the hand of 
the manufacturer^ the Tvatch was but a bit of steel 
which the maker endowed tvith such properties that 
in time it was bound to grow into a watchf An(J 
God^ moreover^ not merely gave the original impulse^ 
but was active in the work throughout its whole pro- 
gress — a Creator who works from end to end in His 
creation^ and in every step of the onward progress 
shows His presence in the design and purpose every- 
where manifested. Mysteries only multiply if we 
try to conceive of a Creator who works in this fashion, 
quietly, slowly, and unseen. 

Speaking of the mystery of the Godhead, one is 
reminded of the argument from the beauty as well as 
the utility of this world of ours. Beauty, like truth, 
is a reality outside of ourselves. It must have its 
seat somewhere — and the existence of relative beauty 
here implies perfect beauty in Him who made this 
earthly splendor. Finite beauty implies infinite 
beauty; the beautiful landscape, cloud, sunset, face, 
figure, are but drops in the great ocean of beauty. 
Once more, beauty has a strange, mystic power; we 
cannot explain it, nobody can explain it. And so it 
prepares us for the profound mysteriousness of God, 
from whom all beauty comes. Clouds and darkness 
are round about Him. With God, and the thoughts 
of God, there is always for us an inherent, unfathom- 
able, spirit-stirring mystery. 

If the world that lies about us, in its usefulness 
and its aesthetic charm, tells us of a Creator, of 



WHY I BELIEVE IN GOD. 



13 



infinite wisdom^ boundless power, and deepest mys- 
tery, the world that lies within ns tells of the personal 
existence and moral grandeur of this infinite Creator. 
When I look within, at myself, I know that I am a 
person, a being with a separate existence ; I am my- 
self, and am quite distinct from all that lies outside 
of this self. And, moreover, I am a person who dis- 
tinguishes between right and wrong ; I have an innate 
sense of goodness; I know that there is righteous- 
ness and unrighteousness, and I know that I am a 
free moral being who can choose between them. 
There is no force upon earth superior to human per- 
sonality; and because this is so I know that in God 
must be found something to correspond to personality 
in myself, or else God is not Almighty; man is greater 
than He. To put it briefly, because / am a person 
I know that God must be a Person as well. He who 
created cannot ie less than the infinite expression of 
His own creation, and because I am what I am, God 
must be something like me, only in Him the likeness 
is carried to perfection. 

Personality in God does not mean that He is a 
sort of enlarged man, as some people in their crude 
way seem to think ; it means rather, that God is more 
than mere energy or force ; He is a Being, who thinks, 
plans, wills, and acts — a Being who can be known as 
well as a Presence to be felt. The personality of God 
is of the very essence of religion ; for if He were noth- 
ing more than an impersonal energy, I could not pray 
to Him, I could not obey Him, I could not love Him ; 



14 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



we cannot love^ obey^ pray to that which is only a 
neuter pronoun — It. 

For these reasons^ then^ I believe in God. I be- 
lieve He made the world and all that is therein; it 
must have come from some hand^ and I believe it 
came from His. I believe that He is a Person^ be- 
cause I know that I am^ and He is infinitely greater 
than I. I believe He is a Moral Being, because He 
gave me my sense of morality. I believe in God^ and 
I cannot get away from this belief. The world 
within and the world without, the voice of con- 
science and the voice of nature^ tell me that there is 
one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and 
earth, and of all things visible and invisible. 



III. 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 

MOST people seem to think that when they have 
learned to believe in the existence of God^ the 
Christian doctrine of the Trinity comes as an addi- 
tional demand on their faith. They regard it as 
comparatively simple to believe in a Supreme Being, 
bnt when they are asked to believe that in the unity 
of the Godhead there are three Divine Persons, they 
regard this as a new burden on an already over- 
burdened creed. 

As a matter of fact, however, it is exceedingly 
difficult for the human reason, in any case, to gain a 
satisfactory conception of the inner life, the essence 
of the Godhead — the thought is one beyond the grasp 
of finite intelligence. We see this the moment we 
think of any of God^s attributes. What can we under- 
stand, for example, of His self-existence, a life with- 
out source or origin, a great First Cause? Or try 
to conceive of His eternity, without beginning of days 
or end of years ; or of His omnipotence, a power which 
is almighty, yet exercised in accordance with definite 



16 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



laws and subject to moral limitations; or of His 
omnipresence^ by which we mean not simply that His 
influence is everywhere felt^ but that He Himself is 
in every part of His universe^ that all of God^ so to 
speak^ is everywhere at one and the same time ; or of 
His omniscience^ including in tliis the thought of 
God's foreknowledge and man's free will. 

The idea of God^ then^ whether as Trinity or 
Unity^ is utterly beyond our comprehension. Yet, 
while this is true, it may be possible here to show that 
it is far easier to believe in God as Three Persons 
than to accept the Unitarian conception of the deity 
as a monad. Before we touch upon that, though, 
it may be well to call attention to some hints in 
nature, which prepare us for the Trinitarian concep- 
tion — not that these could ever have taught us the 
truth about God, had it not been fully revealed by 
Christ; but such types and figures will prepare us 
for the substance and reality, of which they are but 
shadows. 

An illustration of the Trinity, poor and weak, in- 
deed, but an illustration, nevertheless, is found in 
the sunbeam. It is absolutely one — we call it a beam 
of light — and yet in that unity there are three en- 
tities, light and heat and actinism. They exist to- 
gether, yet they are three. They are properties that 
can be distinguished, yet they are one. All of the 
sunbeam is light, all is heat, all is chemical action, 
and yet there are not three sunbeams, but one. 
Another imperfect illustration of the doctrine is the 
human soul. It has three functions, knowing, feel- 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 



17 



ing, willing. We cannot exercise these functions 
apart. We cannot know a thing without having 
some feeling or desire about it^ however slight^ or 
without acting, or declining to take action, in accord- 
ance with the desire. We cannot act about a thing, 
without the wish preceding the act; we cannot have 
the wish without some previous knowledge of the 
thing. The human soul is absolutely one, and yet 
it is threefold. And since man is made in the image 
of God, we need not be surprised when Scripture tells 
us that something of the same kind, though higher 
and more mysterious, is true of God. 

The mysteries of nature, too, may prepare us for 
the mystery of God^s existence. Here we have on 
our side so good an authority as the great scientist 
Huxley himself, who, though he was not a believer in 
theism or in Christianity, based his position purely 
on the question of evidence and not on the difficulty 
of the revelation. On this very subject, in a letter 
to Canon (now Bishop) Gore,^ some years ago, he 
said: "I have not the slightest objection to offer 
a priori [that is, on grounds of reason] to all the 
propositions of the three creeds of Christendom. 
The mysteries of the Church are child^s play com- 
pared with the mysteries of Nature. The doctrine of 
the Trinity is not more puzzling than the necessary 
antinomies [that is, contradictions] of physical spec- 
ulation.^^ 

In other words, as Bishop Gore says in comment- 
ing on the letter, a man like Huxley would recognize 

^ Quoted in Bampton Lectures for 1891, p. 266. 



IS THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



that liiiman tliougiit may well find itself baffled to 
conceive about Tvliat it still must believe. As an 
example, tto are given what scientific writers tell us 
about the ether which is the vehicle of heat and light. 
This ether is described for us by physicists as dif- 
fused through all space: but though it is ever^wrhere 
it cannot be discovered anywhere, and when its prop- 
erties are examined it seems to be at once a solid and 
a fluid. This is mysterious indeed, and passes our 
limited power of imagination, but nevertheless it ap- 
pears to be true and is regarded as true by the scien- 
tific world. One who finds it difficult to conceive 
of a Trinity in unity might well approach the sub- 
ject, then, by thinking first of the mysteries of nature 
and so preparing liimself for the mysteries of the 
faith. Or he might contemplate his own being — how 
'^•fearfully and wonderfully'* he is made — lest he grow 
impatient at understanding so little of the infinite. 

It was said just now that it is easier to believe in 
God as three Persons than as one. Try to think it 
out. for example, in connection with the very idea 
of personality. TVe know that God has personality, 
because He cannot be less than we are. whom He 
created — and personality is our greatest attribute. 
Whatever we mean by the personality of God is in- 
finitely higher than what we mean by personality in 
men — but it is something that must run on similar 
lines, so to speak. How. them could there be the full- 
est and most complete personality in God if He were 
a lone and solitary unit, without anything correspond- 
ing to personal communion and intercourse ? Imagine 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 



19 



a God^ seated alone in desolate grandenr; and then 
think of the Christian conception of God^ in the rela- 
tion of Father, Son, and Spirit, showing perfection 
of life, fulness of movement, intercourse, action, re- 
ciprocal love — and you will see what we mean by say- 
ing that such a God is easier to conceive of than the 
cold unit of those who reject Trinitarian teaching. 
As a matter of fact. Unitarians hesitate at the con- 
ception of God prior to the creation of the world, be- 
cause of these very difficulties. 

Or take the thought of God as love. If He is 
love, there must be something on which He is to 
expend His love. What or whom did He love, then, 
before the creation of the world? Was His love in- 
finitely expended upon Himself? We cannot but 
feel that such a thought is shocking to our best in- 
stincts — a monstrous selfishness is the only picture 
the language suggests. But if, on the other hand, 
there are difl^erent Persons in the Godhead, then one 
Divine Person may lavish the infinite wealth of His 
love upon another Divine Person who is infinitely 
worthy to receive and return it, and we have a picture 
of God as perfect love, love in Himself, as of the very 
essence of His being, and apart from any relations 
with a created world. 

Once more, if God is love, how are we to reconcile 
all that is seemingly hard and harsh and unlovely in 
the world, with His infinite affection? May we not 
say that one never can make the needed reconciliation 
except through belief in the divinity of our Lord 



20 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



Jesus Christ — and the cloetrine of Chrisfs divinity 
carries ^ith it the doctrine of the Trinity. 

Of course, while all this is trne^ we could never 
of ourselves have discovered the d.octrine of the 
Trinity — ve are dependent njDon Scripture and the 
teaching of the Church for our knoTrledge of it. And 
as to Scripture^ this much may be said^ that if the 
doctrine is not categorically declared there it is neces- 
sarily and plainly implied. "We find clearly set forth 
the divinity of the Father^ of the Son. and of the 
Spirit: Tve have their equality declared; ve have 
them united under the one Xame in the baptismal 
formula, and if it remained for the Church to choose 
the vords by which the mysterious fact of their union 
should be expressed^ she vas compelled to do so by 
what she had experienced of the Son and of the 
Spirit. From the very beginning Christ had been 
worshipped as God^ and the formal statement that He 
was what He had always been accepted to be, was a 
step made necessary by Christian experience. From 
the beginning the Holy Spirit had also been given 
divine honor, had been worshipped as on an equality 
with the Father who sent Him : and when the assaults 
of heresy made some statement of the facts neces- 
sary^ the Church was but declaring in careful lan- 
guage what had long been accepted in thought. 

Abstruse as all this may sound, it will not be 
wasted time to try to think it out. It will be good 
for us to realize how little we are, when we come to 
place ourselves in contemplation of what is infinite 
and eternal — and the humbling process will be the 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 



21 



best possible exercise of devotion. '^^Do you assure 
ine that it would be far wiser to devote our energy to 
the promotion of practical religion? Practical re- 
ligion! Ah^ how we cheat ourselves with phrases/^ 
says Dr. Huntington.^ ^^Show me the man whose soul 
is full of heavenly imaginings^ who dwells largely 
among things not seen^ whose thoughts often take 
flight from the edges of this buying and selling world, 
that they may strike out into the pure air and find 
rest upon the wing as the seabirds do^, and I will show 
you one who will make the best of neighbors, the most 
public-spirited of citizens, the gentlest, kindest, 
truest, least arrogant of men. For, after all, the 
great thing in ^practical religion^ is to sink self ; and 
in this task we succeed best at moments when most 
we realize the littleness of man, the majesty of the 
Almighty.'' 

Surely, thought about the Trinity is of impor- 
tance, then, in the religious life. And it becomes of 
the greater value when we realize that this doctrine of 
God is the only doctrine which shows Him to us as 
eternally productive, all sufficient within Himself, 
always and in His very essence a God of love — that it 
"helps us both to think about Him and to worship 
Him with intelligence, and enables us to recognize 
that human life can be in His image only by becoming 
continually more operative, more fruitful, more so- 
cial.'' 

The Trinitarian may well challenge his Unitarian 
friends to a comparison of the two beliefs — and as he 

6 "Church Club Lectures," 1891. 



22 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 

knows already that the Churches doctrine is Scrip- 
tural he will find added confidence in the assurance 
that it is more reasonable^ and^ best of all^ of more 
practical yalne as an incentive to unselfish living. 



IV. 



THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 

IT would be very interesting if we could print here 
just what everybody we know thinks about Christ. 
It was the question our Lord Himself asked, "What 
think ye of Christ "Whom say ye that I am^^ 

There are many people who do not understand 
how He can be both God and man, and who therefore 
flatly deny His divinity. But if you were to ask 
these people just exactly what they do believe about 
Him, you would find when they tried to put their 
thought into some positive form, that it was not pos- 
itive at all, that their answers would be most vague 
and uncertain. They will not accept the doctrine 
that Christ is divine ; but they will not be at pains to 
discover precisely what they do think He is. Prob- 
ably, if you were to pin them down to some definite 
answer, most of them would say that they think He 
was a good man, the best man the world has ever 
seen. Some would go further, and tell you that He 
was divine in the same sense in which all men are, 
though in greater degree — that is, that God abso- 



24 THE PvELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATIOX. 



liitely possessed and filled His whole life. But He 
is not God^ tliey will add ; no^ Christ was a good man, 
the best^ the purest, the holiest^ the most unselfish 
man that ever trod this earth; but He was not God 
incarnate. 

Well, let us see. Suppose some religious teacher 
were to stand before us and declare himself sent by 
God to lead us to a fuller knowledge of His divine 
character. Suppose lie were to begin his work by 
saying that we are all of earthly origin, while he was 
from above; suppose he were to summon us to do 
him reverence ; suppose he were to tell us that he was 
the way^ the truth^ the life^, the light of the world, 
the good shepherd of souls; su.ppose he were to re- 
peat this in every conceivable form^ were to tell us 
that we must honor him as we honor God^ that we 
cannot come to God except through him^ that he and 
God were one^ that if we believe in God we must 
believe also in him^ that if we do not love him it will 
show that we do not love God. 

What would you say of such a man ? You could 
not call him good. You would declare him either a 
lunatic or an impostor. Xo religious teacher to-day 
would dare point men to himself; none could have 
any influence if he were not willing to acknowledge 
his own imperfections. A religious teacher may say, 
^•1 try/"^ ^-1 think/-^ ''I feel sure/^ ''1 hope/^ ^^I be- 
lieve'^; but he must never say, ^^I am.^^ A sane man 
who spoke of himself as never committing sin would 
be consigned at once to oblivion and contempt. 

Xow, bearing all this in mind, notice our Lord's 



THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 



25 



self-assertion, His silence as to any moral defect, His 
intense authoritativeness, His claim of co-equality 
with the Father, His assertion that He is essentially 
one with God, His call to men to make Him an object 
of faith, just as they believe in God, to trust in Him 
as they trust in God, to honor Him as they honor God, 
and to love Him because to do so is a necessary mark 
of the children of God. See how He declares that no 
rival claim, however strong, no natural affection, how- 
ever deep, may interpose between Him and the soul 
of His follower. "He that loveth father or mother 
more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that 
loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy 
of Me.^^ See how He asserts His absolute sinlessness, 
challenging men to find any spot in Him. "Which 
of you convinceth Me of sin?^^ Eead scores of pas- 
sages where Christ makes such claims, and then ask 
if He can be sincere, unselfish, humble, and good, 
if He is not more than man. As St. Augustine put 
it, "Christ, if He is not God, is not a good man.^^ 

Consider, too, that these divine claims of Jesus 
are what brought about His death. Why was He 
crucified? Mcodemus was not simply speaking for 
himself, he probably expressed the sentiment of many 
of his co-religionists, when he said, "We know that 
Thou art a teacher come from God.^^ But just be- 
cause Jesus was not content with that admission, be- 
cause He claimed to be more than a divinely com- 
missioned teacher and asserted His equality with the 
Father, He was taken to judgment and to death. He 
was crucified on the charge of blasphemy, because He 



26 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAENATION. 



made Himself equal icitli God. Was He^, tlien^ in 
making this claim^ an ignorant, half-crazed fanatic ? 
Either that : or else He was a thoronghly unprincipled 
man: or else He was what He claimed to be^ He was 
God. 

Does one find it hard to believe that Christ is 
God in the flesh? VTell. it is harder to believe that 
He is trnly a good man if He is anything less than 
this. ^"It is easier/' says Dr. Liddon/ ^'for a good 
man to believe that in a world where he is encom- 
passed by mysteries^ where his own being itself is a 
consummate mystery, the Moral Author of the won- 
ders around him should for great moral purposes 
have taken to Himself a created form^ than that the 
one Human Life which realizes the idea of humanity^ 
the one Man who is at once perfect strength and per- 
fect tenderness, the one Pattern of our race in whom 
its virtues are combined, and from whom its vices are 
eliminated^ should have been guilty, when speaking 
about Himself, of an arrogance^ of a self-seeking, of 
an insincerity, which if admitted must justly degrade 
Him far below the moral level of millions among 
His unhonored worshippers. Thus our Lord's hu- 
man glory fades before our eyes when we attempt to 
conceive of it apart from the truth of His divinity. 
He is only perfect as Mam because He is truly God. 
If He is not God^ He is not a humble or an unselfish 
man.'^ 

Or think, once more^ of Christ's claim to judge 
the world. ^^The Father judgeth no man^ but hath 

7 "The Divinity of Our Lord," Lecture iv. 



THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 



27 



committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men 
should honor the Son^ even as they honor the Father/^ 
We know what it means to sit in judgment over one 
of our fellows. It means^ if we are to give a perfect 
judgment^ that we must know his whole lifC;, read 
every thought^ consider every word^ be acquainted 
with every act. It means that we must be able to 
read his heart like an open book^ that we must have 
thorough understanding of all his motives; for 
motives as well as actions must be taken under con- 
sideration. It means that we must have perfect 
knowledge of all his past^ his inherited tendencies, 
his early environment, his peculiar temptations, the 
strength of his resistance of them. We must be able 
to look into his eyes, and read him through and 
through. 

Consider, therefore, what Christ claims when He 
asserts that to Him it is given to know in this way 
not one man, but all men, not one soul, but every 
soul that ever faced sin, every man, woman, or child 
who is now on earth, or ever came into the world, or 
is yet to be born, to live and work and love and pray 
and struggle here. To make such a claim is to de- 
clare one's self omniscient, and to assert one's om- 
niscience is to call one's self God. Christ did make 
this claim, and we come back again, therefore, to the 
samxC dilemma : if He was not insane. He was either 
the incarnation of wickedness, or He was good — and 
if He was good He was also God, as He claimed to be. 

In all this, let it be noted, we are but touching 
the border ground of the proof of Christ's divinity. 



28 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEN'ATION. 



We have to remember not only what He said about 
Himself^ but what others said of Him. What did 
St. Thomas mean^ when he fell at His feet and cried^ 
^"^Mv Lord and my God*' ? What did St. Paul mean^ 
when he said. ^^In Him dwelleth all the fulness of 
the Godhead bodily'^? What did he mean^ again^ 
when he said of Christ that ^T^eing in the form of 
God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God^ 
but made Himself of no reputation^ and took upon 
Him the form of a servant^ and was made in the 
likeness of men^^? What did the writer of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews mean^ when he called our 
Lord Christ ^^the brightness'' of the Father's ^^glory/^ 
and ^'the express image of His Person** ? What did 
St. John mean, when he called Him the Word of 
God^ and said that '^in the beginning was the Word;, 
and the Word was with God^ and the Word was God. 
And the Word was made fleshy and dwelt among us^^ ? 
What must this same St. John have believed^ when, 
his soul thrilling at the thought of the wonderful 
thing that had come into his life, he used such lan- 
guage as this of his blaster? Eead it: "That which 
was from the beginning, which we have heard, which 
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked 
upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of 
life: that which we have seen and heard declare we 
unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us : 
and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and 
with His Son Jesus Christ.*' "We know that the 
Son of God is come, and hath given us an under- 
standing, that we may know Him that is true, and we 



THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 29 

are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. 
This is the true God, and eternal life.^^ 

What did they mean, and what did they believe ? 
What but that Jesus onr Lord was in truth the divine 
Son of the Father? And what can we believe but 
just what they did? What think you of Christ? 
Do the Gospels give us a substantially accurate ac- 
count of His life? And did His disciples know 
Him? And was He a good man? And if so, was 
He not also God ? 

Jesus Christ is indeed the revelation of the 
Father; we really know God only as He is manifest 
in the Son. Apart from Christ, God is as it were 
but an idea, a conception, and our hearts cry out for 
further knowledge: ^^Show us the Father, and it 
sufficeth us.^^ In Christ, and through Him, God be- 
comes an intense reality: ^"^He that hath seen Me 
hath seen the Father.^^ 



V. 



THE IXCARXATIOX OF OUR LORD. 

I BELIEVE in one Lord Jesus Christy the only- 
begotten Son of God. . . . who for ns men 
and for our salvation came down from heaven^ and 
was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, 
and was made Man/^ 

What we have just seen about our Lord^s divine 
self-consciousness forces us to a conviction of this 
truth. So it was with the early disciples. They 
went about with Jesus while He lived on earth, and 
they found Him to be perfect man in everything that 
pertains to human nature. Then gradually, as they 
saw the daily miracle of His life and listened to His 
wonderful words and saw His marvellous works, 
they came to the conviction that He was also perfect 
God; and this belief, but half formed at His death, 
was confirmed in His resurrection, through which 
He was seen as Lord of life and victor over the grave, 
and was "declared to be the Son of God with power.^^ 
The apostles did not reason out the Incarnation 
from the Godhead doivnward; they reached it by 



THE INCAKNATION OF OUR LORD. 



31 



a natural ascent from the manhood upward. 
They saw that nothing less than this truth could 
explain all that they had learned^ as their eyes 
gazed upon and their hands handled the Word 
of Life. St. John's Gospel, which was written 
to give the record of the Apostles' faith, traces 
the growth of this conviction, and closes (for 
the last chapter is supplementary) with the cry of 
St. Thomas, kneeling in penitence and adoring faith 
at the feet of his Master, ^^My Lord and my God.'' 
Christ's first disciples '^'^came to believe in His God- 
head through their experience of His manhood ; and, 
coming so to believe, they handed on their faith as 
an inheritance to the Christian Church, an inher- 
itance which the record of the words and deeds of 
Jesus of Nazareth, and the perpetual experience of 
His power in those who believe, has made continually 
more credible."^ 

Christianity is the religion of the Incarnation. 
And yet, strangely enough, thousands of those who 
profess and call themselves Christians have the 
vaguest possible notion of what the Incarnation 
means. Let us try to state the doctrine. Briefly, 
it tells us that according to the Christian Faith Jesus 
Christ is both God and Man, perfect God and perfect 
Man (that is, having every essential element of both 
natures), but that while He has two distinct and 
perfect natures He is one divine Person. A little 
tract which I picked up some years ago,® gives a sim- 

« Gore : "The Creed of the Christian." 
9 By the Rev. B. W. Maturin. 



32 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATIOlSr. 



pie illustration which, may perhaps help us to a clear 
understanding of the doctrine^ though we must be 
careful not to read into it the N"estorian conception 
of the Incarnation^ which will be explained a little 
later. 

Suppose that a man^ for love of some of the 
creatures beneath him^ were permitted to become 
one of them. Suppose^ for instance^ that a man had 
devoted his life to the care of birds^ and saw that 
through some great mistake in their mode of life 
they were fast dying off. Suppose now that he could 
become a bird^ so as to teach birds how to live. He 
would have to enter into their nature through the 
ordinary laws by which their life begins ; and having 
become one of them^ he would still be able to see all 
things from a human point of view. With his man^s 
mind he could see their mistakes^ and through the 
nature which he held in common with them he could 
teach them the remedy. But he had lived long be- 
fore he became one of them^ and he still remained 
what he was before^ only taking up their nature that 
he might help and teach them and come closer to 
them than before. 

So Jesus Christ is God. He had lived from all 
eternity, co-equal with the Father and the Holy 
Ghost; at the Incarnation He entered through the 
womb of Mary into man's nature. He saw man mis- 
taking the meaning of life, living for pleasure or sin; 
and He said, I, the Son of God, will enter into man's 
nature ; with My divine mind I will see his faults and 



THE IIsTCARlSrATION OF OUR LORD. 33 



the remedy; through the nature which I assume I 
will be able to show him this remedy. 

If this is true^ then, we must remember that when 
Jesus Christ does anything or says anything, it is 
God who is speaking or acting. Not that there are 
two persons in the two natures, God the Son and the 
man Jesus ; it is the one Person, the Son, the Second 
Person of the Trinity, and He is merely translating 
the life of God into our ways of thinking and acting. 
When an infant is born, a new person comes into the 
world ; but when Jesus Christ was born, no new per- 
son entered into life ; it was the same Divine Person 
who had lived from all eternity with the Father, and 
now took a new nature unto Himself and lived in 
that nature, manifesting in it the divine truth and 
beauty that was His before, making God, as it were, 
visible to men, and living His new life, our human 
life, as He would have us live it. ISTo man had seen 
God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in 
the bosom of the Father, came and declared Him, 
made Him known. 

In so revealing God and man, the Eternal Son 
shows us some things which, apart from a belief in the 
Incarnation, it would be exceedingly difficult for us 
to realize. He shows us what God is; He shows us 
also what man should be. He shows us, for example, 
God^s love, God's personality, God's presence with us ; 
He shows us, by living in it perfectly, the essential 
nobility of man's nature. Let us take this last 
thought now : The Incarnation tells us of the inher- 
ent worth of our humanity. Were our nature wholly 



34 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



bad. God tlie Son could not have taken it to Himself; 
since He did so take it. He lias purified it. sanctified 
it. lifted it up into His o^n divine life. 

Eeniember now that Christ is one Person. God the 
Son. in two natures, that of God and that of man. 
Among the early heretics was one named Xestorius^ 
who did not believe this. His explanation was some- 
thing like this — and it is especially interesting as 
expressing clearly what many people, in a vague way^ 
think now. He maintained that ]\Iary really ''gave 
birth to something which was human first and after- 
wards was taken into 'conjunction' with the Eternal 
Word." that the Son of Mary was human: at His 
birth, or perhaps not until His baptism, the Word^ 
the Son of God. made Him the special receptacle of 
deity. There were really two persons in Christ, the 
man who was born of a Imman mother, and God who 
had entered into such close union with this man that 
he was filled with the divine energy and was even 
able to "rank as God.'" 

This doctrine was condemned by the Church. 
And we can readily see why. For it really does away 
with the Incarnation. If God simply came down 
into the man Christ, then He took upon Himself not 
all humanity but simply one bit of humanity: He 
did not Himself become man, He simply inspired and 
glorified one micni by manifesting Himself through 
him. If Xestorius was right, then the Gospel is 
the story of the exaltation of just one of God's crea- 
tures; but if the Church's doctrine of the Incarna- 
tion is accepted, then God really became flesh and 



THE INCAKNATION OF OUR LORD. 35 

dwelt among us, tabernacled in humanity, not in a 
man. If that doctrine is true, all mankind was ex- 
alted in Christ, not one single person; all mankind 
was lifted up into the Godhead, potentially at least; 
all mankind was sanctified by the indwelling of the 
Holy One of God. We know, in that case, that there 
is something about our human nature so divine that 
God can really enter into that nature and live in it 
without ceasing to be God; and we know that since 
humanity is essentially so glorious a thing it can be 
lifted up in Christ back to what God intended it to 
be. 

This truth of the Incarnation, therefore, is not 
a mere dead bit of metaphysics. Surely not — it is 
a fact of practical importance ; a dogma, but a dogma 
which like every other doctrine of the Christian creed 
influences our conception of life. If we believe in the 
Incarnation — in a real incarnation, not such a mys- 
tical conjunction as Nestorius taught — ^we believe 
that Christ sums up all humanity in Himself. He 
is to us in something of the relation in which a com- 
posite photograph stands to the pictures that formed 
it. Christ has in Him all of mankind; He is man, 
rather than a man, and in Him are united all the 
members of the human race; you are there and so 
am I; indeed, there is no one who ever has lived or 
ever will live in whom there is not something which 
goes to contribute to the universal character of Him 
who is the Son of Man. 

And if this is so — if Christ is the sum of all 
humanity, if we find in Him something in common 



36 THE RELIGIO?^ OF THE INCARNATION. 



with every human being who has ever walked this 
earth, then every human being, no matter how evil 
his life, however poor or degraded he may be, however 
steeped in wickedness, has within him a germ, a seed, 
which if it can be developed is capable of a new life 
and a glorious resurrection. As was said in the 
first of these papers, the conception of the Incarna- 
tion teaches us to recognize a new and ineffaceable 
relation between man and man. If we believe that 
our Lord took upon Him humanity. He took upon 
Him all types, and every man, white or black, high 
or low, practised in holiness or defiled by sin, the 
saint of the cloister and the outcast of the street, the 
Christian and the heathen — every man has in liim 
some likeness to Christ, and if the Christ-life can but 
be applied to him may be made anew after Chrisf s 
perfect likeness. ISTone may be forgotten or despised. 
The Hebrew would not step on a piece of paper, lest 
it should have written on it the Name of God, and we 
cannot look down upon God^s lowest creature, because 
on him is stamped, however faintly, the image of the 
Lord Christ. 

It has been beautifully said, ^'^There is hardly a 
roadside pond or pool which has not as much land- 
scape in it as above it. It is not the dull, brown, 
muddy thing we suppose it to be. It has a heart 
like ourselves, and in the bottom of that, there are the 
boughs of the tall trees, and the blades of the shaking 
grass, and all manner of hues of variable pleasant 
light out of the sky. Nay, that ugly gutter which 
stagnates over the drain bars in the heart of the great 



THE INCARNATION OF OUR LORD. 



37 



city is not altogether base. Down in that^ if you will 
look deep enough^ yon may see the dark^ serious blue 
of the far-off sky^ and the passing of the pure clouds. 
It is at your own. will that you see in that despised 
stream the refuse of the streets^ or the image of the 
sky.^^ And what is true here is true of man as well. 
J esus is our pledge of that. He came to seek and to 
save those who were lost^ and He saves them by com- 
ing into their nature^ that this nature may be brought 
into touch with His. So long as breath remains to 
them^ so long as He is reflected ever so faintly in 
them^ we may have hope. No one else can see into 
the depths of their hearts as Christ can^ and till He 
has given them up we must never despair. 



VI. 



THE IXCARXATIOX AXD THE LOVE OF GOD. 

J E saw in the last chapter what the Incarna- 



Y V tion teaches iis about man. Let ns now see 
what it tells ns about God. 

Most of all^ it shows iis^ with absolute certainty^ 
the love of God. Sometimes men and women are 
troubled and grow doubtful of that love. In the 
presence of some great personal sorrow or frightful 
public calamity, or contemplating the sin and evil 
that lie all about us^ it must be that sometimes faith 
will falter^ if it does not fail. With the world seamed 
and scarred with sin^ sorrow^ sufferings and death, 
it is not surprising that in the case of a few at least 
belief in the existence of a good and loving God 
should sometimes totter. We may say that such a 
faith is very weak (and often it is but conventional), 
yet even the most thoughtful and religious cannot but 
feel in the presence of such a mystery, that they must 
sound the depths of their convictions and ask upon 
what solid basis their religious belief rests. 

I called not long ago on a friend who only a year 




THE INCARNATION AND THE LOVE OF GOD. 39 

before had married a sweet and lovely young woman, 
of whom we were all very fond. They had just 
those few months of happiness, and then the wife 
died, and with her their new-born baby. I call to mind 
now another case of most pitiful bereavement. A 
widowed mother was left to care for two little ones; 
for years she strained every effort to give them the 
privileges and advantages that would fit them for 
life; she had worked all those years, with the con- 
stant hope before her that they would some day be a 
comfort and help to her, would some day, when life 
opened more brightly for them, bless her for all the 
loving sacrifice of those years. The boy had just fin- 
ished his school life, and had secured a fine business 
position, and the girl was just growing into years of 
young womanhood, when disease carried both away, 
and the mother was left desolate. 

What could one say of God's love, to these broken- 
hearted mourners? What would any man dare say, 
if it were not for all that the life of the Man of Sor- 
row shows us ? There are many possible explanations 
of the meaning of suffering and sorrow, but none of 
these explanations really satisfies the troubled soul. 
The great clue to the problem is a steadfast faith in 
the divinity of Jesus Christ. If we have not such a 
faith, we are all at sea — and those who do possess it 
need to realize its power in solving the difficulties of 
life, that they may make others feel its steadying in- 
fluence. 

If Christ is the Eternal Son of the Father, there 
can be no question about the love of God. There may 



40 THE RELIGION OF THE IXCAEXATION". 



be many things in the world that seem to contradict 
that love, but though we are mystified in the presence 
of all this evil, we are not at an utter loss. We 
TiROiv that God is love, because we know that Jesus 
Christ is love — and Christ is God. His life is the 
perfection of love — no one can deny that. But if He 
v\Tre merely a man, the fact would mean nothing to 
us; we should have but another instance of a noble, 
loving heart struggling against evil and, apparently 
deserted by God, conquered in the end. If, however, 
Christ is more than man — if He is God Incarnate; 
if He came on earth to restore sinful, suffering, sor- 
rowing humanity into harmony with the divine plan; 
if, moreover. He came, not of Himself alone, but His 
loving purpose had its origin also in the Father^s 
will; in other words, if ^'God so loved the world that 
He gave His only-begotten Son** — then we may hold 
our faith firm, no matter what dreadful calamity, or 
beart-breaking personal sorrow, attacks it. We may 
not understand why God permits the existence of 
pain and evil and sorrow — we may not understand, 
but we Jcnoic; we know that God is love, because we 
know that Jesus Christ is love — and Christ is God. 
God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, once walked this 
earth ; and no man can look at Christ and doubt His 
infinite affection. Did He love men ? See Him as the 
leper pleads to be healed. ^^And Jesus stretched forth 
His hand and touched him^^ — touched the man who 
liad not felt the warmth and pressure of a human 
hand since his loathsome disease came upon him — 
^^touched him, and said, I will ; be thou clean.^^ Did 



THE INCARNATION AND THE LOVE OF GOD. 41 



Christ love men ? See Him on the cross^ praying for 
His murderers ; see Him^ dying that He might redeem 
lis. ^^Snrely He hath borne onr griefs^ and carried our 
sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken^ smitten 
of God^ and afflicted. But He was wou.nded for our 
transgressions^ He v/as bruised for our iniquities ; the 
chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with 
His stripes we are healed.^^ Who can contemplate 
the cross and remain unmoved? Who^ as he draws 
near to Calvary, is not hushed into silence? The 
offering lifted up there is the supreme exhibition of 
love^ in its length and breadth and depth and height 
so great that it ^^passeth knowledge.^^ 

Let me repeat^ however^ at the risk of being te- 
dious^ that all this would prove nothings were Christ 
but a man. We see around us now men who love 
their fellows ; and would it prove more to be told that 
this was a man who loved them to perfection? But 
if He is God — then when we see how He loved us we 
begin to see how God loves us^ and whatever of ill 
we are called upon to bear^, we can continue in pa- 
tience to trust in His goodness. There is God In- 
carnate^ we say^ and in His presence we believe and 
are su.re. Whether all things can be explained or not^ 
we know in whom we have believed. 

Or^ looking at it from another point of view^ 
the thought of Chrisf s divinity assures us of the 
Pather^s affection for us^ also; for it teaches us to 
see how ^^God commendeth His love toward us^, in 
that He spared not His own Son^ but delivered Him 
up for us all.^^ ^^In this was manifested the love of 



42 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATIOK. 



God toward iis^ because that God sent His only-begot- 
ten Son into the woiid^ that we might live through 
Him. Herein is love^ not that we loved God, bnt that 
He loved iis^ and sent His Son to be the propitiation 
for onr sins/^ Had God sent a man into the worlds 
a good man who lived a righteons life and died a self- 
sacrificing death^ and then had God accepted this 
sacrifice as a ransom for other men^ it wonld hardly 
have showed God as just^ mnch less loving. Bnt if 
God Himself came to save ns^ if He gave His own Son 
— there was love indeed^ love on the part of the Son^ 
and love also on the part of the Father ! A pious 
English cottager^ on hearing the text^ ^^God so loved 
the world/^ exclaimed^ ^^Ah ! that tuas love. I conld 
have given myself^ bnt I conld never have given my 
son/^" 

And so the fact of the Incarnation gives ns the 
best cine that can be found in solving the mysteries 
of sin and sorrow. The great secret of the Church 
is that this world^ however much of the strain and 
stress of pain and terror there may be about it^ is 
really ruled by illmighty Love. ^^That is the fact of 
which the doctrine [of the Incarnation] is only the 
abstract expression; that is the great fact which men 
are doubting vrhen they doubt this doctrine; that is 
the great fact which the Bible puts for us beyond all 
question^ not simply by naming the doctrine^ but by 
telling us the story of the Christ who came down from 
heaven that we might have life.^^"" 

10 Mason : ''The Faith of the Gospel." 

11 Tunis : "The Faith by Which We Stand." 



VII. 

THE INCARNATION" AND GOD's PERSONALITY. 

THEEE are very few men who have not some 
realization^ more or less intense^ of the existence 
of a Supreme Power bearing some sort of relation 
to the world. So Herbert Spencer tells ns^ as the 
result of his philosophic stndy of the subject^ that 
^*^it is absolutely certain that we are ever in the pres- 
ence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which 
all things proceed.^^ Man is born^ almost;, with this 
idea pressing upon him ; he cannot escape it ; no mat- 
ter how skeptical he may be^ no matter how careless 
his lifC;, no matter how little he may think it possible 
to know about God^, if there be a God — this one simple 
conviction he cannot escape^ that somewhere in the 
universe^ whether it be a power unknowable^ a blind 
force^ an impersonal activity^ whatever it may be^ 
somewhere there is an infinite and eternal energy^ 
an energy from which all creation has sprung. Some- 
times^ as he pauses in the hurry and bustle of a care- 
less life^ this thought will be borne in upon him with 
special force^ burdening and oppressing him with its 



44 THE RELIGI0:N^ OF THE INCARNATION. 



aTrful presence. Whatever lie may believe or disbe- 
lieve^ when he gets by himself^ in the loneliness of his 
OTvn chamber^ or out under the stillness of the mid- 
night skjy back will come this instinct that he is not 
really alone^ that some power holds him in its grasp;, 
some energy is pushing him on^ somewhere and some- 
how there is a force above him which he can never 
get away from^ that envelops him^ and seizes him^ 
and in some mysterious way controls his life. 

It will be seen at once^ however^ that such a belief 
as this is either no knowledge of God at all^ or no 
such knowledge of Him as man^ if he has a spark of 
what we call religion^ needs and must long for. Yet 
it seems sometimes as if it were pretty much as far 
as some people have ever gone in their thinking about 
heavenly things. Their main idea of God is this 
thought of some eternal power^ in the presence of 
which they feel a momentary awe and oppression; 
they fear God^ when they stop to think of Him^ much 
as a child fears the darkness or the thunder. 

ISTow religion is the worship and service of a Su- 
preme Beings and therefore for religion to have any 
hold on men it is necessary that they should think 
about God^ primarily^ not as a Power but as a Person. 
We cannot really offer God an act of worship^ we 
cannot give Him any genuine service^ we cannot pray 
to Him unless we have a very deep and certain realiz- 
ation of His jjer^onal being. And this is just what 
we find so hard to get^ just what men have always 
found hard to gain. All that we know of personality 
we know through men and women whom we have 



GOD'S PERSONALITY. 



45 



seen and with whom we have had direct intercourse. 
How then can we ever realize the personality of God 
— whom we have not seen^ whom no man can see? 
Again and again there comes over ns the awful sense 
of His presence; again and again we feel our own 
moral responsibility, and begin to realize that there 
must be some One who sees and judges; again and 
again we tell ourselves that God must be more 
than an ever-present impersonal force, that He must 
be a Being who in some way acts as do the finite 
beings who are made in His image; but it is all a 
hard and painful struggle against heavy odds. "Shew 
us the Father/^ we say, in the words of St. Philip; 
"shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.^^ If we 
could, so to speak, have one glimpse of God; if we 
could but have some vision that would assure us that 
He is a Person who knows us and with whom we 
may have communion and fellowship; if we could 
but rise out of this ignorance of His manner of life 
and think of Him as something more than energy, 
infinite and eternal though it be ! "Shew us the 
Father.^^ Let us see Him ; let us know Him person- 
ally, after the same fashion in which we know our 
earthly friends — then everything will be easy, then 
faith will never fail, then we shall be able to pray with 
earnestness, then we can give ourselves to His service, 
then we can yield Him personal devotion and pay 
Him homage and worship. 

And as we long thus for this deeper knowledge of 
God, our Lord Christ comes to us, Christ the In- 
carnate Son, and says, "Have I been so long time with 



46 THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



jou, and yet hast thou not known Me? He that 
hath seen Me hath seen the Father/^ 

Ah ! there is the answer to all our craving. Here 
is God. He that hath seen Christ hath seen God. 
The Word^ the Son of God^ the express image^ the 
stamped copy of His Person^ became flesh and dwelt 
among ns — and from that moment it has been easier 
to know God^ easier to realize His eternal personal 
beings easier to come to Him and find in Him a 
Friend and a Father. All along we have been grasp- 
ing up after the infinite and have failed to hold it 
fast; now the infinite has stooped to our finite levels 
and we may know God as we know one another. 

How plain it is I All through their long training 
with the Lord Christ the disciples were being pre- 
pared for this. They were not let at once into the 
secret of His divinity; but they were brought to 
know Him^ allowed to meet with Him. day by day 
grew to be on more intimate terms with Him ; in His 
words and deeds they saw the brightness of God^s 
glory, and as they learned to know Christ they felt 
themselves gradually understanding more of God^ 
they felt a new life within them, they saw by a new 
light — and then one day^ when they had reached the 
height of personal intimacy with the Master He 
said to them^ ^^I and My Father are One ... He 
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.'' Xow that 
you know Me^ He seemed to mean, you know God. 
You have longed to draw near to Him, and to see 
Him in the very essence of His being; now you may 



GOD'S PERSONALITY. 



47 



— for you have seen and known Me, and when yon see 
Me you see My Father also, you see God. 

How plain it was; how simple, even when He 
had gone away, had left earth for Heaven! They 
had seen God, had talked with Him and lived with 
Him : that was what those three years of discipleship 
with Christ meant. They had seen and heard and 
handled the Word of Life; they beheld His glory 
shining out in His human life — and henceforth they 
could never forget. Back they went in memory to 
all their life with Him, to the days when they had 
questioned Him about their perplexities, when they 
had carried their troubles to Him, when they had 
asked Him of this thing and that, when they had 
knelt at His feet and offered Him their reverent ser- 
vice. And now they saw that they had been doing 
all that with God — God whom they had longed to see 
and know. 

And how plain it is for us now ! As we read the 
Gospels we find there the picture of a Person who 
once walked this earth of ours, with whom men once 
talked, whom they knew as a Friend and loved as a 
Brother. As we read we begin to know and love Him 
too. By and bye we see that this was no mere man, 
that He was and is God, our God forever and ever. 
Seeing that, we see that God is a Person such as this 
Man of Galilee was, a Being whom we may know, 
love, honor, and worship, to whom we may pray with 
the certainty that He hears and answers — no blind 
force or power, but in some way One like ourselves, 
only infinitely more than we are. 



48 THE RELIGIO^T OF THE INCARlSrATION. 



There have been times^ perhaps^ when we were 
not able to realize that personality; times when we 
felt only the dull weight of a presence that oppressed 
us but gave ns no peace^ no comfort^ no joy; times 
when we could not be certain that God kneW;, or 
listened^ or would help. But now we go back to our 
Bible and reading it in the light of this Incarnation 
that has become so plain^ we have our thought of God 
transformed; we believe^ and feel that we can doubt 
no more, for we know that this is the Christy the Son 
of the Living God. 



VIII. 



THE INCARNATION AND GOBI'S PRESENCE. 

THEEE are two v/ays of thinking about God. 
We may think of His immanence^ or of His 
transcendence. By the immanence of God we mean 
His presence and activity in every part of His crea- 
tion. The motion of the planet in its orbit and the 
dropping of a leaf in the breeze of summer alike dis- 
play His power. By God^s transcendence^ on the 
other hand^ we mean His position without and be- 
yond nature; we think of Him as dwelling above 
the worlds guiding and directing its movements. It 
is this latter thought which we more frequently asso- 
ciate with God^s personality. When we think of His 
immanence we are apt to rest in the idea of energy^ 
f orce^ power universally excited ; we think of a divine 
presence^ but we are likely to have a very indefinite 
conception of that presence^ corresponding to the 
vague feeling of awe that oppresses us as we contem- 
plate nature in her more solemn moods. In order 
to have the conception of God^s personality^ we must 
add to the thought of His immanence the idea of his 



50 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



transcendence. He is not only luithin nature^ filling 
it with life and energy^ but He is above nature^ as a 
personal Superintendent^ if we may so speak^ direct- 
ing its workings. 

But just here conies the difficulty. As we grasp 
this latter idea more fnlly^ instinctively we put God 
away from ns. We think of Him as a Being f ar-oflf^, 
in other regions than those we inhabit. We forget 
that God can never leave His worlds that He cannot 
be banished from His creation^ that He cannot have 
made the world, and so to speak^ started it goings and 
then left it to its own operation^ with once in a while 
a special intervention on His part. We are so apt 
to get that notion of an absentee God against which 
a recent writer"' so vehemently protests^ ^^the con- 
ception of a God sitting in the centre of the universe 
ruling things^ as an imperial Csesar sits in Eome.^^ 

The thought^ perhaps, may not be altogether 
clear; so suppose, in order to appreciate it, we put 
a question to ourselves. As a matter of fact, how are 
we accustomed to think about God? We feel His 
personal existence, let us hope, very deeply: but hoiv 
do we think of this personal Being ? Do we think of 
Him oftenest as being ivith us, at our side, looking 
into our faces, or do we think of Him as being far 
away, entirely out of our reach? Is it not a fact that 
from childhood we have been putting Him ever at a 
distance — kneeling to pray to Him, and yet somehow 
feeling that we must strive hard to make Him hear ; 
picturing Him in heaven, ^^above the bright blue sky,^^ 

^- Lyman Abbott, in the Outlook. 



GOD'S PEESENCE. 



51 



as the children's hymn puts it^ One who hears^ and 
yet somehow — we cannot explain it^ but somehow — 
almost out of the sound of our voices^ almost out of 
reach? We pray^ and it seems necessary to lift the 
eyes^ and stretch out the hands^ and strain after God. 
Yes^ we know that He is a person^ but He seems al- 
ways to be a distant person; He seems never to be 
here^ He is always there^ just beyond us^ not with uS;, 
never leaning over us as the mother did at whose knee 
we bent in childhood^ with her hand on the little 
one's head^ and her face over him. This is the way 
we long to think about God ; we want to have a deeper 
sense of His nearness^ we wish to realize His personal 
presence. 

Now a moment's thought will convince us that de- 
vout meditation on the Incarnation can satisfy this 
longing for God. See how it was with the early dis- 
ciples. We are not to suppose that from the moment 
they saw Christ they understood His divine nature. 
At first He was to them only a very good man. We 
ourselves come into the presence of a man or woman 
of saintly character and at once we seem to be breath- 
ing a different air^ there is a subtle something in the 
conversation and bearing of our friend that rests 
like a benediction upon us^ and God seems nearer. 
So it was that the disciples first knew Christ, we may 
suppose. Not without reason do the painters picture 
Him with a halo about His head and a glory shining 
from His person ; it was so, in a figure, that the dis- 
ciples saw Him from that first day when the Baptist 



52 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



pointed Him out to Andrew and John at tlie river- 
side. 

Then, as their intimacy Tvith Him deepened^ they 
began to kno^r Him as the Messiah, and remembering 
all that had been told by the prophets of hoTv God^'s 
grace should be poured on the Anointed One, they 
learned to think of Him as indeed bringing the Al- 
mighty very close to them. Yet later they knew 
Him as in some special sense the Son of God, and the 
significance of the title grew upon them as He spoke 
to them from time to time of His union with the 
Father, of His equality with Him, and of the neces- 
sity of a personal union with Himself in order to be 
knit up into the divine life. What it all meant they 
did not fully understand then, but as time went on, 
He spoke more and more plainly, and then, after the 
Eesurrection, they saw the meaning of His life, saw 
that in the presence of their Master they were in the 
very presence of God. 

So their faith grew — and mark how its gradual 
development prepared them to realize at the last God's 
presence with them in Christ. They could not have 
understood or believed it at the first ; but after all this 
training the truth came home to them now. They 
saw that when they had been speaking with Christ, 
when they had reverently touched His hand, when 
they had knelt at His feet, when they had told Him 
of their joys and sorrows, or asked His help, or 
offered Him their love, they had been walking and 
talking with God. That was why their hearts burned 
within them : they were in the divine presence, follow- 



GOD'S PRESENCE. 



53 



ing God as His dear children; once they had known 
Christ after the flesh, but now they knew Him so no 
more ; they had gradually come to the revelation and 
so they could grasp it ; they looked back upon the old 
life, and realized its secret and knew now why the 
Master was to be called Emmanuel; truly, in a way 
far higher than they had dreamed, He was God 
with us. 

Then notice how this sense of the presence of God 
with them was deepened by the resurrection appear- 
ances. There seems to have been a plan followed in 
Christ^s way of manifesting Himself. The disciples 
had been with Him and had known His presence in 
the flesh so long, that it was necessary that they 
should be prepared for the difl^erent presence that was 
to be vouchsafed them after the Ascension. Before, 
they had known that He was with them because they 
had seen Him with their eyes and handled Him with 
their hands. Sometimes they were still given the 
opportunity to do that — for they must be assured of 
His bodily resurrection — but now He always came 
and went so mysteriously: one moment they were 
alone in the upper chamber, and the next He came 
and stood in the midst; again, they were fishing by 
the Sea of Galilee, and they looked up to find Him 
standing on the shore; the disciples on the road to 
Emmaus met Him, and then just as they recognized 
Him He vanished. Was it not so, that the lesson 
might gradually be learned, the lesson we need to 
learn ourselves, that He was always with them, in 
their work, in their worship, at the social board — 



54 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCAENATION. 



always with tliem^ but unveiling His presence only 
now and then? Later came the Ascension^ when a 
cloud received Him out of their sight ; but they knew^ 
after all that trainings that He had not gone away; 
He was still present^ though thereafter the veil was 
not to be lifted for them. All the Easter appearances 
had been given to make them understand this, that 
He was ever by their side, and had only to part the 
cloud and reveal Himself when He would. Xow 
and then the veil was lifted yet^ for St. Stephen^ for 
St. Paul: but for the most part there were to be no 
more visions — indeed^ they were so sure now of His 
presence that visions were no longer needed; they 
knew^ though they could not see. 

Christ is with us; and Christ is God^ therefore 
God is with us. That is what the Incarnation meant 
in the apostolic days, and that is what it means now. 
If ice do not feel it; if as we gather together for wor- 
ship in His name there is no deepened sense of the 
nearness of Christ and the Father; if there has been 
no catching of the breath, no glow at the hearty no 
reverent awe. no sacred sense of mystery — then we 
must turn back and seek to quicken our faith. TThat 
do we really believe about Christ ? Are we sure that 
He is divine? If so^ what He did of old He does 
now : and if we will pray to have our faith strength- 
ened we too shall see and know^ and for us too God 
will comC;, and speak^ and help, and strengthen. 

"Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can 
meet ; 

Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet." 



XI. 



SIN AND THE FALL. 

THE existence of sin and evil in the world is pos- 
sibly the greatest mystery that we are ever called 
upon to face. And yet, if we come to think of it, 
the idea of a world of men and women altogther 
good and true, without the possibility of evil as a 
thing they had deliberately rejected, would be a more 
difficult conception. For moral goodness implies 
virtue that comes from choice. 

Sometimes we hear people say that God might 
have made us good, and kept us good, that He might 
have created us so that there would be no possibility 
of our doing what is wrong. Could He have done 
that? We can hardly see how — for then we should 
not be men and women at all ; we should be mere ma- 
chines, and our goodness would be like the ^^ood- 
ness^^ of a perfectly constructed watch or a delicately 
adjusted engine; it would have no moral element 
about it whatever, it would be mere mechanical good- 
ness. Instead of our being free agents, serving God 
because we would show Him a loving and grateful 



56 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



obedience^ Tve sliould be wooden puppets^ al^vays 
moving in the right direction^ but doing so because 
we were put here or there^ and caused to do this or 
that, at the touch of a hand that moved the springs 
and wires. 

Take two boys who have been brought up in dif- 
ferent ways by equally virtuous and conscientious 
parents. Suppose that one of them has been so care- 
fully guarded from sin that he has not been allowed 
to iliinJc tilings out for himself. His father has al- 
ways told him just exactly what to read^ what to see^ 
what to speak^ whom to meet^ what to do. In the 
effort to prevent the boy from doing wrong he has 
kept away from him all knowledge of any but his 
own views; and the son has grown up^ therefore^ in 
innocence. But he is not necessarily^ on that account^ 
a good man. His virtue is the virtue of ignorance; 
he does what his father has taught him^ because there 
has never entered into his mind a conception of any- 
thing else. He has been so carefully guarded that he 
has practically no independent existence apart from 
that of the parent who has moulded and shaped him. 
Suppose it were possible for a father to train his son^ 
strictly and absolutely, after this method — what sort 
of man would he grow up to be, do you suppose? 
Would you not think him a mere nonenity? You 
would realize that to have him stay good as long as he 
lived, he must never be separated from his father. 
The only hope of his remaining virtuous would lie in 
his remaining bound and restricted : the kind of good- 
ness that such a boy had would be utterly inconsistent 



SIN AND THE FALL. 



57 



with freedom. No father ever yet succeeded in train- 
ing a child precisely in this way; but we have often 
seen parents who have tried to^, and just in measure 
as they have succeeded have they made the children 
of such training poor^ weak creatures, with little true 
moral strength or steadfast virtue.'^ 

Contrast such a training with that of a lad whose 
father has carefully inculcated in him the keenest 
sense of duty and the deepest principles of morality, 
but has sought to guide rather than force his thought. 
He has been constantly pointed to what is good, and 
right, and honorable; but he has been allowed to see 
the other side, too — warned of its perils, told of its 
hatefulness, but allowed to face it for himself, and 
left to make his choice from right principles. Such 
a boy will probably do things that are wrong, but 
under the guidance of a good father he will ordinarily 
grow into a strong, sturdy moral manhood. Sud- 
denly deprived of the father^s guidance, he will not 
plunge into weak and sinful excesses, but will face 
evil alone and gain now in moral power by the same 
strength that has become his in facing these very 
things before with the father^s help and guidance. 

ISTow we may reverently say that God, in training 
us His children, had to choose between these two 
methods — except that with Him either plan could 
have been carried to perfection. As was said before, 
however, the first method would never have produced 
a real humanity, it would have generated a race of 
^^doU children,^^ so to speak. However perfectly evil 

" See Latham, ''Pastor Pastonim," lecture ii. 



58 THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCARN-ATIOK 



may have been avoided, tlie result ^ould have been a 
TTOoden perfection. It could have been said^ ^^These 
are good men. good Tvomen/*' bnt only in the sense in 
which we now speak of a ^'good'' picture^ or a ^^good'^ 
tool^ or a '•good*' piece of Trorkmanship. 

So it vrill be seen to some extent why evil exists in 
God's TTorld from the beginning, at least as a possi- 
bility of thought. God. when He made man^ wished 
to create a being whose goodness would be a moral 
goodness^ who would serve Him from choice^ whose 
virtue of life would be a growth and development^ not 
a finished creation. So He made man a free agent. 
The story of the Garden of Eden shows how the man 
so made was left to choose to serve his Creator. 
Stripped of its imagery, the story tells us that man 
was placed in a condition of life in which all was 
good and fair; that evil, however^ was there in 
thought for him to contemplate, that he was to know 
it as a possibility, but not from actual experience. 
Left thus, our first forefather, at Satan's temptation, 
fell. The pleasures of sin were placed before Eve, 
and she, and Adam with her, were lured into tasting 
evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was 
there for them to look upon, for they must know of 
the possibility of evil or they could not be really good 
— they chose to know more than the possibility, they 
would know experimentaUij, and so they fell. But 
it was infinitely better that they should be in danger 
of falling than that they should be kept under God's 
perfect restraint and made to do right. It is the 
crowning glory of man, some one has said, that he 



SIN AND THE FALL. 



59 



can stand before his Creator and say^ ^^I will not/^ 
Had he contemplated his power^ and declared instead^ 
^^Lord^ I will; help me^, and I will/^ the story of the 
race would have been a very different one ; bnt had 
the choice never been given^ the narrative would never 
have been a human story at all. 

Perhaps some one will say that such an explana- 
tion as this implies that God is the author of imper- 
fection. Nothing of the sort. God^ when He had 
made man^ could look upon His own creation, and 
^TDchold, it was very good.^^ But this goodness was 
an undeveloped perfection; it was the perfection of 
a beautifully formed bud, not the perfection of the 
full blown flower : God made the first man with the 
goodness of childhood, intending that this should de- 
velop into the stronger, deeper, richer goodness of 
full-grown age. 

It would not be honest, however, to pass over this 
aspect of the subject without squarely meeting one 
decided difficulty which the thought of the day forces 
upon us. It is constantly objected to the doctrine of 
the fall of man that if Adam's transgression means 
also the downfall of the race, the conception goes 
wholly against the evolutionary theory. This theory 
— which is now generally accepted — tells us of a pro- 
gressive development from inorganic matter to or- 
ganic, from brute to man, and from primitive man 
to the race as we find it to-day. Now Christianity 
seems to run counter to all this with its ^^belief in a 
moral change for the worse, happening at a definite 
time, and yet affecting the whole human race.^^ Is 



60 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



this theory of a moral degradation reasonable^ we are 
asked^ in view of the general fact of constant ad- 
vance? Is it not natural to suppose that man is in 
every way higher and better to-day than was his first 
forefather ? 

We can only reply to this'^ that science above 
everything else teaches us to be true to facts ; and the 
presence of sin in the world^ of a disorder and strug- 
gle in human nature which is unnatural^ is something 
we must honestlj^ face. Xo theory of evolution is 
complete which ignores the fact that while man is 
indeed developing and making progress^ his progress 
is checked and impeded in one part^ and that the very 
highest part^ of his nature. ^^However great his de- 
velopment has been, it is still a retarded development^, 
slower than it might have been^ less regular and less 
sure than God meant it to be.^^ Sin seems to be the 
cause of this ; it only can account for the dark shadow 
which rests upon all human history and has held man 
back from his full development — and sin itself can- 
not be satisfactorily explained; it is ^^the one irra- 
tional^ lawless^ meaningless thing in the whole uni- 
verse.^^ ^^t is because he is true to facts^ then^ that a 
Christian evolutionist refuses to acquiesce in the easy 
optimism of those who see but one side of human de- 
velopment^^ and ignore this great obstacle to the true 
progress of the race. 

To go back again to our argument after this in- 
terruption^ let us repeat : God made man good ; and 



The following paragraph is condensed from Aubrey Moore, 
"Science and the Faith," from whom the quotations are taken. 



SIN AND THE FALL. 



61 



then man lost this original goodness. He made man 
at harmony with Himself, and man by his disobedi- 
ence broke that harmony, became separated from God 
and lost the grace which alone kept him true to him- 
self. We may illustrate what happened at the fall 
by saying that man, being made in the image of God, 
was intended to reflect God^s likeness, as our own 
features are reflected in the smooth surface of a pool 
of water. At the fall this reflected image was marred, 
rather than absolutely lost. We look at our faces as 
reflected in a mirror, and if we break the glass the 
reflection is hopelessly gone; we look into the pool, 
and if by stirring up the water or disturbing its sur- 
face the image becomes broken or dulled, we know 
that by and bye it will be restored, when the water is 
smooth and clear again. So, when man fell, the im- 
age of God was lost, but not lost in such a way as to 
be destroyed beyond hope of restoration. 

One word, too, as to the fact that when Adam fell 
the whole race fell with him. We are getting to 
realize more and more in our day the solidarity of 
mankind. No man can live to himself. Whatever he 
does must affect many others, and his sins and his 
virtues alike inevitably influence many lives beyond 
his own. We need not be surprised, therefore, when 
we are told that in the infancy of the race all man- 
kind was to be found in embryo, as it were, in Adam, 
and so all future generations were affected by his sin. 

Original sin is this inherited taint in our nature, 
that marring and spoiling of our original purity that 
makes us prone to evil. Just as the child of the con- 



62 



THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAENATIOX. 



sumptive is born with a physical weakness that tends 
to the development of tuberculosis^ so the child of the 
drunlvard or of the thief, any child (for all have had 
ancestors with some sinful weakness) is born with a 
perverted nature^ with a tendency to sin^ which may 
be restrained and overcome in large measure^ but 
which is there, nevertheless, and must be corrected. 
]\Ian has fallen from God^ and must be won back. 

And. thank God^ he mn be won back^ can be 
helped back. ''As in Adam all die^ even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive.*' The race fell because it was 
knit up into unity in Adam^ its progenitor, and the 
race can be lifted up when it is united in Christy its 
new head. ''We are confident that this world of ours^ 
scarred with its battlefields, darkened with its igno- 
rance and vice, defiled with the unceasing impurities 
of men. is yet crowned with a halo of light, bathed in 
an atmosphere of holiness, for upon it stands the 
form of the Son of Man. and radiating from Him are 
streams of never-ceasing grace.'*'' 



15 G. H. S. Walpole : Church Club Lectures, 1891, "Grace 

and the Sacramental System." 



X. 



THE ATONEMENT. 



E have seen that man has a fallen nature. We 



V V are now to ask how that nature is to be re- 
stored in Christ. This brings ns to the consideration^ 
first of all^ of the Christian doctrine of the Atone- 
ment. Hardly any article of the faith has been so 
distorted and caricatured as this^ so it may be well 
at the very start to ask what it really is. 

Briefly^, the doctrine is this: That Christ died 
for our sins^, giving His life a ransom for us; that 
by His death upon the cross He took away the sin 
of the worlds and by our union with Him we are re- 
stored to the divine favor. ^^The death of the Lord 
Jesus/^ Canon Liddon puts it, ^^paid the debt which 
man owed and which man of himself could not pay to 
the Justice and Sanctity of God. His obedience to 
the divine will took the form of expiation, and be- 
came a satisfaction for sin to" the All- Just. 

It has been objected to this doctrine that since 
God made men what they are He cannot be in the 
position of demanding reparation for sins committed 




64 THE RELIGION OF THE INCAENATION. 



by them because o^ the Treakness of His own creation. 
Moreover^ we are told that to picture God seeking 
to punish men for their sins^ being turned from His 
wrathful purpose by the goodness of His Son^ and 
accepting the death of one person for the offenses of 
others — all this is to make God an unreasonable 
tyrant and a capricious judge^ rather than a merciful 
and loving Father. 

To meet these objections^ and to show how they 
caricature the doctrine of the Churchy we must first 
go back and look at that which made the Atonement 
necessary — sin. We are all conscious of it. We hnow 
that we have sinned^ and that our offense has not been 
against our own nature only^ or even against our fel- 
low beings^ but that most of all we have grieved and 
offended God. The psalmist wonderfully recogiiizes 
this when he thinks chiefly of God as the victim of 
his ill-doing. '^^Against Thee only have I sinned^ 
and done this evil in Thy sight. We have all sinned. 
And all of us who have any true sorrow for sin realize 
that our wrong-doing has not merely degraded and 
injured ourselves^ but is an offense against God^ an 
offense^ too^ that makes us deserving of punishment : 
when we have sinned^ we ought to pay the penalty 
of our sin. 

Xor is this all. When we seriously think about it 
we know that it is utterly impossible for us to pay this 
penalty. Sin has made us displeasing to God^ and 
we are in no position to make Him an offering ; every 
fresh sin makes a new payment necessary; and for 
the least of our offenses — and most of all^ for the 



THE ATONEMENT. 



65 



sum of them — nothing that we could offer would ever 
be an adequate recompense. Sin^ too^ has so dead- 
ened the conscience that it cannot even offer the satis- 
faction of complete penitence. How^ then^ shall our 
recovery be effected ? Shall God forgive us fully and 
freely^ without exacting a penalty ? God can do that^ 
of course^ but He can hardly do it and be consistent 
with Himself. We must remember that God is not 
only good and loving^ but just and holy; and His 
justice as well as His goodness must be satisfied. To 
allow sin to go unpunished would be to cast justice to 
the winds and put a weak sentimentality in its place. 
God is the Creator of moral responsibility; and 
'^Vould He be faithful to Himself if^ after having 
laid down these great principles of morality in the 
nature and conscience of man^ He did not do homage 
to them by judging men according to these rules 
which He Himself has established T^^^ 

Nor would it be just to man to forgive in this 
loose^ lax^ free fashion. All true forgiveness must 
show sin for what it is. If I forgive my child for his 
offense, I must, for his sake as well as for the sake of 
truth and righteousness, forgive him in such a way as 
not to diminish or benumb his sense of guilt ; I must 
not let my love and tenderness be such as to lead him 
into an easy-going, good-natured carelessness; the 
sin must not be made to appear less hateful or less 
painful than it really is. 

There are, then, these facts: Man has sinned. 
God is good and would forgive him. But God is also 

^« Godet : "New Testament Studies," chapter iii. 



66 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCAENATION. 



just, and sin is hateful: and before God can freely 
forgive this nmst be made clear. The pardon must 
not be snch as to obscure God's holiness or palliate 
man's sin. and lest this should be the case some pen- 
alty from tlie guilty one must be exacted or acknowl- 
edged. Sinful man is incapable of making the needed 
satisfaction, though it be but tlie penalty of true 
penitence. Hoav. tlien, can botli the goodness and 
the justice of God be satisfied? 

Here comes the Christian answr: Jesus Christy 
by His perfect life here on earth, fulfilled all of God's 
law. He. then, is fitted to make a sacrifice and pro- 
pitiation for sin. He makes the sacrifice for us. He 
became obedient to death, even the death of the cross, 
that He might save us, who lay in darkness and the 
sliadow of death. 

But how, it may be asked, can such an offering 
avail us? If God be perfectly just, how can He be 
satisfied with one man's well doing in propitiation for 
another's evil deeds? 

There are two ways of answering these questions. 
The first lies in a right apprehension of the truth of 
the Incarnation. The Son of God, when He came on 
earth, took to Himself not one single human life but 
human nature generally. "Tt was manhood and not 
man that the Son took into union with Himself 
and so when He suffered on the cross He suffered not 
as a single human being but as the representative and 
head of the race, as one who had in Himself some- 
thing of the nature of every member of the race. In 
one sense, therefore, it may be said that all mankind 



THE ATONEMENT. 



67 



suffered in Christy and so that which owed the debt 
paid it. '^'^Taking to Himself our flesh/^ says Hooker^ 
"and by His Incarnation making it His own fleshy 
He had now of His own although from us what to 
offer unto God for ns.^^ 

It does seem^ however^ that the other answer is 
the one which emphasizes more clearly our individual 
connection with the sacrifice of Calvary. This second 
view bids ns remember that^ as has already been sug- 
gested, a sufficient satisfaction for sin is found in the 
offender's real penitence. God would not exact any 
other penalty, if that could be offered; He would let 
the penalty pass, if once the riglit to exact it were 
seen and acknowledged. From the first moment of 
the fall, man had failed to comprehend, as God would 
have him see it, the aivfulness of sin. If he could 
once be made to see that ; if he could be brought to a 
humble and penitent acknowledgment of His position 
as under the condemnation of death — ^then God's 
justice would be appeased. As Godet" puts it: 
"That which God desired was not the satisfaction of 
the demands of His justice by the effusion of torrents 
of blood; it was the revelation to the conscience of 
men of those demands which they had refused to rec- 
ognize; it was the willing acknowledgment of them 
by that conscience itself. And why was this? Be- 
cause herein lies the true restitution for wrong com- 
mitted; and herein, consequently the true basis for 
the re-establishment of moral order when it has been 



""New Testament Studies," p. 162. 



68 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARXATIOX. 

disturbed. When the will which disturbed it has 
once convinced itself of having been in the wrongs 
and has passed sentence of death upon itself, then 
order has triumphed in the midst of the world of dis- 
order. God can the more easily relax the demands 
of His justice^ when the righteousness of those de- 
mands has been recognized by the transgressor.*^ 

And we see how Christ's sacrifice accomplishes 
this. Just as ^'human forgiveness in its best forms 
is saved from being demoralizing when the forgiven 
child has been made to see the pain given iy its fault 
to the forgiving parent/'^ so we discover the awful 
analogue of this^ when '^divine forgiveness comes in- 
deed freely^ but comes by divine Love itself bearings 
before our eyes^ our sins or their results.'"^' Jesus 
Christ came into the worlds He lived here the perfect 
life God had designed for men^ He was absolutely 
without sin^ and when He was put to death men saw 
the enormity of sin in all its horror. If sin did that^ 
they must say. as they looked at the cross — if sin did 
that^ or if sin be so hateful in God's sight as to make 
such a sacrifice necessary — then we begin to see what 
we deserve for our transgressions. ^Tome down from 
the cross^ Thou Holy One of God.*^ we can say^ 
"^^come down from the cross^ it is I that should be 
there^ not Thou.'^ In the death of Christy and in 
nothing else^ we can see the awfulness of sin^ and can 
be brought to acknowledge the penalty that is its due ; 
there^ and nowhere else^ the pain and shame of sin 



18 Bishop of Rochester, in Hibhert Journal, July 1904. 



THE ATONEMENT. 



69 



are awakened ; there its full horror is at last realized ; 
there we are convinced of onr own guilt, ^'^pricked 
at the heart^^ ; there, in the supreme moment of for- 
giveness, we find that the forgiveness is made possible 
because now we see sin through the eyes of God. 

All this is but man^s feeble thought about the 
Atonement. We must not forget that after all we 
cannot expect to understand very clearly its great 
mystery. '^^How, or in what particular way, Christ^s 
death was efficacious, there are not wanting people 
who have endeavored to explain, but I do not find that 
Scripture explains it,^^ said Bishop Butler, and the 
present Bishop of Derry calls that sentence one of the 
wisest in all theology. After all, there is one thing 
only that we are certain of about the Atonement. 
Whatever else we know, whatever we guess at, what- 
ever we doubt, this one thing is beyond cavil — the ex- 
ceeding great love of the cross. It shows us, not an 
angry Father propitiated by a loving Son ; but Father 
and Son, together, out of the infinite affection of an 
infinitely loving heart, co-operating in procuring 
man^s salvation. The Son gladly comes to save; the 
Father as gladly sends Him. The cross is, for both, 
the outpouring of love immeasurable. In its pres- 
ence we bow in adoration and worship ; for its bless- 
ing we lift up the voice of praise and thanksgiving. 
Once we have felt its power, we can hardly lose faith 
or hope or grateful affection. Its message rings down 
the ages, and it is a message that tells us ever the 
same story: ^^God so loved the world that He gave 
His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 



70 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



Him should not perish but have everlasting life/^ 
^^Herein is love^ not that we loved God, but that He 
loved US, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for 
our sins/^ 



XL 

THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE LIFE-GIVER. 

WE should have a very one-sided view of the 
Atonement, were we to regard it simply as 
the work of Jesus Christ for us. There is also a 
work to be done in us. 

The author of this work is God the Holy Ghost. 
He is the Other Advocate sent from the Father by 
the Son, to take Christ's place with His people and to 
finish our redemption. In succeeding chapters, which 
will treat of the Church and the sacramental system, 
we shall see how God the Holy Ghost works within 
us, sanctifying us and fitting us for the heavenly life. 
Here we shall first try to learn something of His per- 
son and office. 

To understand this, we go direct to the Holy of 
Holies, the inmost sanctuary of Holy Scripture, our 
Lord's beautiful and tender address to His Apostles 
on the night before He suffered. On this occasion 
Jesus spake plainly and fully of the Holy Spirit. 
Heretofore there had been many references in His 
teaching to the Third Person of the adorable Trinity, 
and such references had gradually become more and 



72 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



more clear. Bnt here we reach the very heart of His 
teaching about the Spirit. He is spoken of as the 
other Comforter^ who was to take Christ's place and 
abide with His disciples forever. Though unknown 
to the world^ He was already known to the Apostles^ 
for He was ^vith them and one day would be in them. 
He would not only teach them all things^ but would 
remind them of all that Jesus had taught. He, the 
Spirit of truth proceeding from the Father, would be 
sent to them by the Son, and so full of blessing would 
His advent be that it would be better for them to be 
without Christ^s visible presence than to be without 
the presence of the Holy Ghost. Through Him the 
world would realize its sinfulness and its need; 
through Him it would learn what righteousness is 
and would have a sense of coming judgment ; through 
Him the disciples would be guided into all truth; 
through Him the Son of Man would be glorified."" 

So far as they were then able to enter into this 
teaching the Apostles must have learned that the 
place of Jesus Christ would be supplied by an invis- 
ible Person, whose teaching would be entirely con- 
cerned with one subject, Jesus Christ, and whose mis- 
sion would be to make the world understand and 
know Him. 

As these were the last words spoken by our Lord 
to His Church before He suffered, so the first words 
after His resurrection were concerned with the same 
subject. On Easter Day He gave the Apostles the 



^» See especially St. John xiv. 16-17 ; xiv. 26 ; xv. 26 ; xvi. 7, 
9-11, 13-14. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE LIFE-GIVER. 73 



gift He had promised^ by breathing on them^ explain- 
ing His action by the words^ ^'^Eeceive ye the Holy 
Ghost/^ The Holy Spirit now took possession of the 
Church of God^ indwelling it and so enabling it to 
exercise the power of loosing from sin — a gift which 
it was soon dispatched into the world to minister 
through Baptism into the Triune Fame. 

We pass now to the teaching of the Apostles. It 
was doubtless difficult for them to realize the person- 
ality of One whom they had not seen and could not 
see. They were brought to this realization^ therefore^ 
by the complete manifestation of the presence of the 
Spirit given them on the Day of Pentecost^ when in 
fulfilment of our Lord's promise a sound of a rush- 
ing mighty wind was heard and filled the whole house 
where they were sitting, the sight of a sheet of flame 
divided into tongues was seen, and an intense spir- 
itual exhilaration and enthusiasm possessed the Apos- 
tles. Some time after, when the disciples had under- 
gone persecution, a similar manifestation occurred, 
the house where they were assembled being shaken 
and their feelings again strangely elevated, so that 
they were able to speak the Word with all boldness. 

It was now increasingly felt that the Holy Ghost 
dwelt in the whole body of the faithful. To attempt 
to deceive the Church, as did Ananias and his wife, 
was to try to deceive the Holy Ghost. To resist the 
doctrine of the Church was to resist the Holy Ghost. 
The word of the Church was the word of the Spirit.'" 



20 See Acts v. 3-4 ; Acts vii. 51 compared with ix. 31 ; Acts 
XV. 28. 



74 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



Further, it was belieA'ed that the Holy Spirit was 
ordinarily given by the laying on of hands, though 
He was not tied to this means. Any divine inspira- 
tion was felt to be His. The intuitive feeling to set 
aside Barnabas and Saul for their work was felt to be 
a movement from the Holy Ghost, and the two went 
upon their mission with the conviction that they were 
sent by Him. St. Philip is moved by the Holy Ghost 
to take a particular road and join the chariot of the 
eunuch: St. Paul is forbidden by the same divine 
Person to extend his work into Asia ; he is warned^ 
alsO; by the Spirit of what would happen to him in 
J erusalem. 

From such facts it is clear what our Lord meant 
by saying to His followers that He would give them 
another Comforter. The Holy Ghost is here seen to 
be taking the i^lace of the Lord Christ. He is to the 
Church of the Acts what Christ was to the first dis- 
ciples. He gives comfort, joy. courage, advice^ and 
warning ; and He does all as the Spirit of Jesus. 

In the Epistles we find doctrinally what the Book 
of the Acts tells us historically. St. Paul speaks of 
the assistance which the Holy Ghost renders us in our 
spiritual life in helping our prayers, of the assurance 
of sonship which He gives, of the knowledge of God 
which He imparts, of His indwelling us. so that our 
bodies become His temple, of the various gifts He 
ministers to us. of the danger of grieving Him. In 
the Epistle to the Hebrews the Old Testament is said 
to be the voice of the Holy Spirit ; while St. James 
speaks of His longing to make us His own^ St. Jude 



THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE LIFE-GIVER. 75 



of His being the power in which we pray^, St. Peter 
of His moving holy men of old in their Scriptural 
messages and of His power in stirring up the proph- 
ets to search into the deeper meaning of their own 
dark sayings. Finally^ St. John speaks of the mes- 
sage of the Spirit to the seven churches^ of His con- 
firmation of the voice from heaven^ of His commun- 
ion with the Churchy and of His symbolic manifesta- 
tion as the seven Spirits seen before the throne in the 
vision on Patmos.'^ 

It is a modern tendency to regard the revelation 
of the Spirit as impersonal. Language is used which 
would imply that the Holy Ghost is a divine mode or 
faculty or influence. I^othing could be further from 
the truth. The Holy Ghost is not only divine^, He is 
a divine Person. 

(1) He is divine. This is so plain in Scripture 
that He who runs may read. There is little use to 
more than touch on the evidences of the fact. We 
know that He is God because divine attributes are 
ascribed to Him. He is eternal (Hebrews ix. 14), 
omniscient (I. Cor. ii. 10), omnipotent (St. Luke 
i. 35), omnipresent (Psalm cxxxix. 1), all sovereign 
(I. Cor. xii. 11). Failure to recognize Him is failure 
to recognize God (Acts v. 4; I. Cor. iii. 16); blas- 
phemy against Him is worse than blasphemy against 
the Son (St. Matthew xii. 31-32) ; to lie to Him is 
to lie to God (Acts v. 4) ; our bodies, because they are 

21 See Acts Viii. 16 ; ix. 17 ; xix. 6 ; xiii. 2 ; xiii. 4 ; viii. 29 ; 
xvi. 6-7; Romans viii. 26; viii. 14, 16; I. Cor. ii. 9; iii. 16; 
vi. 19 ; xii. 11 ; Eph. iv. 30 ; I. St. Timothy iv. 1 ; Hebrews iii. 7 
and ix. 8 ; St. James iv. 5 ; I. St. Peter i. 11, etc. 



76 



THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



the temple of the Holy Spirit^ are the temple of God 
(I. Cor. Yi. 19 and II. Cor. vi. 6). Plainest of all, as 
showing His divinity, is the fact that in the baptis- 
mal formula and the apostolic benediction divine 
homage is rendered to Him as to the Father and the 
Son. 

(2) He is not only divine, He is a divine Person. 
The central and decisive passage of Scripture, the 
address at the Last Supper, is sufficient proof of this. 
^^There we have the Holy Ghost revealed to us in so 
many words as Eim, not only as It ; as the living and 
conscious Exerciser of true personal will and love. 
And this central passage radiates out its glory upon 
the whole system and circle of Scripture truth about 
the Spirit.'*'^ 

The Holy Ghost is not a mere abstraction: else 
how should we be told of His personal acts, that He 
"maketh intercession for us,*^ that He is the true 
Author of our ^^diversities of gifts,^^ ^^dividing to 
every man severally as He will,^^ that He may be 
sinned against, that such sin ^^grieves'^ Him? How 
could it be said of an impersonal influence that it was 
sinned against, or grieved? When our Lord says, 
^^The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My 
Name, He will guide you into all truth,^^ we have 
clearly set forth in that one short sentence the dis- 
tinct personality of each of the members of the Tri- 
une Godhead. 

This Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. 

" Moule : *'Veni Creator." 



THE HOLY SPIEIT, THE LIFE-GIVER. 77 



The first chapters of the Bible show Him to us as the 
Giver of physical life^ moving upon the face of the 
waters and bringing order out of chaos and renewing 
again the earth after the flood. No less is He Giver 
of intellectual life, giving skill and understanding 
to the architects of the tabernacle, supplying the wis- 
dom of Moses, moving and inspiring the prophets. 

And so, too. He is the Author of the new creation, 
the Giver of spiritual life. It is by His overshadow- 
ing of the Blessed Virgin that a new point of de- 
parture is inaugurated in the Incarnation. He it is, 
too, who brings about the new birth in man. We are 
^^born again by water and the Holy Ghosf^; we are 
saved through ^^the washing of regeneration and re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost^^; we are washed, sancti- 
fied, "in the name of the Lord J esus and in the Spirit 
of our God.^^ "By one Spirit are we all baptized into 
one body,^^ and "the love of God is shed abroad in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost.^^ "As many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.^^ "And 
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit 
of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Pather.^^ 

The Holy Ghost it is, then, who imparts the spark 
of the new spiritual fire within us ; He quickens and 
re-kindles it by His grace ; He inspires us with holy 
desires, and when we sin renews us to repentance — 
in a word. He "sanctifieth us and all the people of 
God.^^ To Him, then, we owe peculiar love and 
adoration as the Lord and the Life-Giver. May it be 
our constant prayer not to resist His gracious influ- 



78 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



ence^ lest by our indifference and neglect we ^^grieve^^ 
and '^^qnencli^^ the Spirit, and drive Him away as He 
comes to make our bodies His temple, the dwelling 
place of His glory. 



XII. 

WHY SHOULD I BELONG TO A CHURCH? 

WE come now to a very practical side of Christ- 
ian life. Having settled our attitude towards 
Christ Himself^ we are now to ask about our attitude 
towards the institution which represents Him in the 
world. The subject is one which presses with special 
force in these times. Every age has its own peculiar 
problems^ and among others its own special religious 
problems. Not that these questions are necessarily 
new, but that they then come more prominently to 
the front, are the striking feature of the day, the diffi- 
culty, perhaps, which most emphatically demands a 
solution. So one of the great problems of our day 
would seem to be a neglect of church going and an 
increasing carelessness about public religious duties 
generally. It is not that this is a new fault, prevalent 
now for the first time ; we learn that far back in St. 
PauFs time it threatened the spiritual life of the first 
Christians; and the writer of the Epistle to the He- 
brews finds it necessary to exhort his converts not to 
^^f orsake the assembling of themselves together, as the 



80 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARJ^ATION. 



manner of some is.*^ But tliongli the fault is found 
then as now. it is peculiarly the fault of onr day. it 
has become so general that the problem of meeting it 
is our problem^ its existence is a matter of common 
talk, its solution a matter of common concern. 

And there is not only the neglect of church goings 
bnt^ deeper than that, a failure to see the need of 
Church membership. There was a time when men 
hardly dreamed of being religions without belonging 
to some Christian organization. They might be irre- 
ligious and careless^ and make no professions of 
Christianity; but they did not for a moment imagine 
that they could be anything other than irreligious and 
yet hold aloof from all organized Christianity : if they 
were believers they must profess some creed and be- 
long to some Church. Xow^ however^ we find an in- 
creasing number of men and women, of moral and 
upright life^ professing and calling themselves 
Christians, and yet identified with no Church — assert- 
ing their admiration for Christ, even their love and 
devotion for Him. perhaps claiming to be in sym- 
pathy with His ideals, or it may be with the aims of 
His Churchy even attending occasionally on the ser- 
vices of some religious body — and yet identifying 
themselves with no Christian communion, and hold- 
ing back from any open Church membership. 

You speak to them about their anomalous posi- 
tion, and they give various reasons for their failure 
to join a Church. Perhaps it is that ^^they do not 
feel that they are good enough/^ perhaps they cannot 
altogether agree with the doctrines of any one body; 



WHY SHOULD I BELONG TO A CHURCH? 81 



or^ they think ^'^there are too many hypocrites in the 
churches already^^; or^ they cannot see the necessity 
of joining the Chnrch/^ they can be followers of 
Christ without it; they think of Christ as a great 
moral teacher^, a sinless moral example^ and they can 
try to follow Him^ without belonging to any organiza- 
tion. 

Indeed^ we shall find with many that there is an 
inherent dislike of the very thought of ^^organized 
Christianity/^ They love to picture our Lord as One 
who went about doing good. Crowds of the poor 
flock to Him for comfort and help^ multitudes of the 
sick press upon Him to be healed^ 'the distressed and 
heavy laden come to Him for relief^ and He receives 
them all so sweetly and tenderly and graciously! 
The publicans even^ and the notorious sinners, are 
not turned away. He has time for the little children, 
and rebukes those who think that He is too busy to be 
troubled by their demands upon His time. 

And He speaks so lovingly to them all, too. So 
simply and beautifully does He explain spiritual 
things, that men cannot but be drawn to Him, can- 
not but wish to follow Him, cannot but long to be 
like Him, cannot but love Him. And so we would 
wish to love Him now, some say; so we want our re- 
ligion brought to us ; so we would have the Gospel in 
its primitive purity and sweet simplicity. The mo- 
ment we try to organize all this into a system, the 
mom_ent you ask us to accept a creed and to tie our- 
selves to ordinances, that moment the charm of the 
picture is gone. 



82 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATIOK 



^Yell^ that picture in all its beauty is quite true. 
But it is not the only picture of our Lord's life that 
the Gospels give us. Our Saviour was all this — sweet 
and tender and graciouS;, calling men to Himself^ and 
never turning any away^, pitiful towards their infirmi- 
ties and merciful in their sin^ drawing them to Him 
with cords of love. But there is another side of His 
life — a deeper purpose^ an inner motive — there is the 
real ohjed of His comings which was revealed at first 
only to the inner circle of His disciples^ and to them 
little by little. He came to suffer and to die^ and to do 
all this not merely that men might be drawn to Him 
as individuals, but that they might be organized and 
knit together in a body^ through the power of His 
risen life — He came as the Son of God to establish a 
hingdom.'^ 

His kingdom ! The word is ever on His lips : ^^It 
is the Father^s good pleasure to give you the king- 
dom^^ ; ^^I appoint unto you a kingdom^ as My Father 
hath appointed unto Me.*^' He is at the pains to ex- 
plain by parables that occupy a large part of His time 
of teaching what that kingdom is^ how it is to be 
started^ how it will grow^ who will be its subjects;, 
what will be its characteristics. 

And this kingdom^ we find by and bye^ is con- 
nected with the Church. As we read what the Master 
says of His kingdom^ the thought seems to point 
sometimes to an organization^ sometimes to the rule 
of Christ in the heart. Xow He says to one who 
comes to Him^, ^Thou art not far from the kingdom 

23 See H. S. Holland : "Creed and Character." 



WHY SHOULD I BELONG TO A CHURCH? 83 



of heaven^^ ; again the other side is emphasized^ when 
He speaks of this kingdom as a net^ or a field of 
grain^ a gathering of sonls^ some worthy and some 
unworthy. Soon he begins^ too^ to speak of His 
Church, and whether this is identical with the king- 
dom^ or whether it is the appointed means of coming 
in touch with it^ at least the two ideas seem to be 
closely connected in the mind of the Master. So His 
heart leaps out to St. Peter^ when the acknowledg- 
ment of His Messiahship shows the Apostle^s under- 
standing of His teaching: ^^Thou art Peter [the 
Eock-man]^ and upon this rock [of such faith as 
thine] I will build My Church.'' 

Yes : our Lord came to found a kingdom^ to build 
a Church. He called His disciples to be made pillars^ 
foundation stones^ of this Church; He trained them 
for that^ ordained them^ sent them out with wonder- 
ful powers. He instituted a sacrament of admission 
into the kingdom: they were to ^^go therefore and 
teach [make disciples^ make Christians^ the margin 
has it^ of] all nations^ baptizing them in the name 
of the Father^ and of the Son^ and of the Holy 
Ghost.'' This Baptism was to be the means of their 
entrance into the kingdom : ^^Except a man be born 
of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the King- 
dom of God." Brought into the kingdom by Baptism, 
they were to find another sacrament of fellowship and 
unity, through the life which came from Him : '^^Ex- 
cept ye eat the fiesh of the Son of Man/' He said, 
^^and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." "The 
Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, 



84 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



took bread; and Trhen He had given thanks He brake 
it^ and said^ Take^ eat: this is My body, which is 
broken for j'on : this do in remembrance of ile. After 
the same manner also He took the cup, when He had 
snpped, saying, This cup is the new testament in My 
Blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remem- 
brance of Me.'^ 

So St. Paul writes of this sacrament. And He 
understood the Lord's purpose for His Church, too. 
With him there was no doubt of the Masters mean- 
ing. This Church which Christ founded is the most 
wonderful thing on earth. Men, as soon as they be- 
lieve, are to be brought into it, and when they are 
so numbered among its members they are in such 
vital union with Christ that the relationship can be 
expressed only by so striking a statement as that ^Ve 
are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His 
bones. St. Paul regards the Church as the very 
Body of Christ, and as our own bodies have many 
members, each with its own office, and all joined in 
living union, so we as members of the Body of Christ, 
His Church, each called into this membership for 
some particular work for Christ, are in the closest 
union with Him, who is the Head. 

The thought is not St. Paul's : he received it from 
the Lord, who had used just as strong a figure when 
He said : '^^I am the Yine, ye are the branches.*^ As 
the branches are knit into the vine, so that the sap 
flows out into them, and through them to the leaves, 
freshening and quickening the youngest shoot, so 
are we grafted into Christ, the true Yine. We are 



WHY SHOULD I BELONG TO A CHURCH? 



85 



members of His Body, and that Body is His Church. 

So the thought, given by our Lord, developed into 
another figure by St. Paul, is to be traced in the 
action of the Apostles. The only way to come unto 
Christ is to enter the kingdom. When men believed, 
they were baptized, and being baptized they became 
members of an organized body. ^^The Lord added to 
the Church daily such as were being saved.^^ 

And so it will be seen that there is more in the 
work of Christ than that first picture showed. He 
came on earth to give us a perfect example of life, 
and as such we seek to follow Him. He came to yield 
His life a ransom for many, and so we wish to love 
and serve Him. But because we cannot follow, and 
love, and serve, without help from Him, He came to 
found a Church, in which all who believe on Him may 
be united in Him and may have His life conferred 
upon them for the quickening and strengthening of 
their faltering purpose. He knew that Christianity 
must be an organism — even His own Body, full of 
His life. 

And we see, therefore, why we must belong to 
some Christian body, to some Church. 

(a) It is the first step in the way of obedience to 
Christ. He commanded that we should be baptized ; 
He told His Apostles so to make Christians of all 
men. He said that this was the one way of entrance 
into His kingdom. He it is, too, who commands the 
other great act of obedience, the eating of His spir- 
itual Flesh and Blood in Holy Communion. And to 
obey that command we must be ^^members of a 



86 THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



Church.'' Whether we see the need of these things or 
not, then, whether we see the reason of them or not — 
we are bound to do what Christ says. He is our 
Master, and His word is law. He commands iis to be 
joined to Him in His Church, and therefore we have 
no choice in the matter. 

(b) But His commands are coupled with wonder- 
ful promises of life: and so we are called upon to 
^•join a Church*' because tliis is the lest icay of gain- 
ing strength for our spiritual life. If Baptism is 
really a new birth, as St. John's report of our Lord's 
words tell us: if the Holy Communion is really a 
feeding upon Him. so that we receive His glorified 
life within us ; if the sacraments are really the means 
by which the strength of the Vine flows out into us^ 
who are the branches — then we can be strong here in 
this spiritual home, as we cannot be if we remain 
without. We ''join the Church.'" then, that we may 
find the grace we all need so much if we are to follow 
the Master we love — -or claim, or wish, to love — so 
well. 

(c) And. lastly, we should belong to the Church 
because that is the lest way of helping others. Our 
Christianity is not true and earnest if it stops at self. 
We cannot center all our wishes on the saving of our 
own souls — we wish to help others, even as we need 
to be helped ourselves. Xow we can best do that in 
the Church — never mind now in which Church, but 
in some one of the various religious societies. 

What would the world be if all the Churches were 
swept away to-morrow ? Imperfect they are. through 



WHY SHOULD I BELONG TO A CHURCH? 87 



man^s sin (even as Christ said would be the fact) ; 
but imperfect as organized Christianity is, yet it is 
the greatest power for good the world has ever seen or 
dreamed of. If you know any better way of taking 
your part in the work of helping others, and so uplift- 
ing the world, show it to us ; but if you do not know 
any surer method, then follow Christ^s plan, and go 
where others have found their greatest help and sup- 
port. 

This will suggest some of the objections which one 
hears against Church membership. 

(a) Men say : ^^I do not go to church, or I do not 
belong to a Church, because there are so many un- 
worthy members in every denomination I know. It 
seems sometimes as if Church people were, many of 
them, nothing but hypocritical and insincere ^pro- 
fessors^ of religion.^^ This is the objection which, 
perhaps, we hear oftenest — that there is a lack of real 
Christianity on the part of Christians in general, and 
that the Churches do not, therefore, show sufficient 
vital force to induce adherence. The complaint is 
heard very often among men of the working class. 
One American labor leader has written : ^Working- 
men like everything in Christianity except Christians. 
They have lost confidence in the Church, but not in 
Christ.^^ As another well-known leader phrases it: 
^^The complaint made by American workingmen 
against the Churches is that they fail to influence 
conduct, that they fail to impress their fundamental 
principles on those who give direction to the prac- 
tical affairs of life in the counting room, in legislative 



88 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



halls,, and on the bench^ although these men profess 
Christianity. Laboring men do not feel that it is 
better for them to work for a Christian than for one 
Vv'ho denies the obligations of Christianity — the ont- 
come of experience has not taught them that such is 
the case: they do not believe that Church membership 
on the part of their landlord insures just and consid- 
erate treatment for his tenants : they do not flock to 
the merchants who acknovrledge Christ as their Mas- 
ter^ in confidence that they will merely on that ac- 
count receive of them honest goods for a fair price.*^ 

The complaint is one which may well cause those 
who are in the Church serious and sober thought. It 
should bring home to us a solemn sense of our awful 
responsibility for our fellows. 

Yet^ so far as the objection is concerned, a little 
logical dissection may not be amiss. There are bad 
people in the Churches, are there ? Well^ we may an- 
swer^ there are bad people in business^ and you meet 
a lot of dishonest folk whenever you transact any 
ordinary week-day labor. There are immoral and 
unworthy people who sit next you when you go to a 
theatre or other place of amusement. If you are a 
union member, you know that every labor organiza- 
tion has its ugly and brutal followers. There are un- 
patriotic and unworthy Americans. But you do not 
renounce business^ and give up amusements^ and ex- 
patriate yourself^ on that account. Xo more should 
you stay out of the Church because its members are 
not what they should be. If Christ founded a 
Church, and if He left therein a storehouse of grace 



WHY SHOULD I BELONG TO A CHURCH? 



89 



for the soul^ it is your duty to be there^ siezing these 
advantages though others do not^ trying if possible^ 
as you follow Christ yourself^ to deepen the lives of 
others who should be following Him too. 

There are bad people in the Churches^ are there ? 
Indeed^ did not Christ say there would be ? Eead the 
parable of the wheat and the tares^ or of the net full 
of fishes bad and good^ and see that it is not at all re- 
markable that among the members of any Christian 
denomination there will be some^, though by no means 
as many as you suppose^ who are hypocritical^ or self- 
seeking^ or inconsistent and insincere. It will be so 
till the great Harvest^ when the chaff shall be sep- 
arated from the wheat. The real point at issue is 
this: Did or did not Christ Himself found a 
Church ? Did He^ or did He not^ make it a home of 
grace ? If He did leave the Church behind Him^ an 
organized body^ it is our duty to be within its fold^ 
no matter who else may be there or however poorly 
their life may square with their profession. 

(b) Or^ again: "I have never joined a Churchy 
because there are so many Christian denominations 
that it is impossible to decide among them. I stay 
outside^ therefore^ and seek to be a follower of Christ 
in my own way.^^ 

Possibly you have not read the anecdote of the 
young man who answered an enthusiastic Church 
worker in that spirit. ^^Oh, I just run around/^ he 
said gaily. ^^I don't understand the difference be- 
tween the Churches; in fact^ there is a great deal in 



90 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAENATION. 



the Bible itself that I don't understand, and until I 
do, of course I can't join any Church/*^ 

^'How many hours a day do you spend stud}dng 
this matter?" asked the questioner. 

"'Hours ?** he repeated in surprise. 

^^Well, then, minutes ?"' 

The young man Tvas dumb. 

^•Ah,'"" said his companion, with patient sadness, 
*'not one ? If you thought a knowledge of geology nec- 
essary to your success in life — or astronomy, or short 
hand — you would not think of spending less than one 
hour a day in its study, perhaps two, perhaps three; 
and you would not expect to know or understand it 
without that exertion. But the knowledge of God^ 
of J esus Christ, of salyation — the highest and deepest 
of all knowledge — you sit around and wait for, as if 
it would come like a flash of lightning.*' 

Does any one see a likeness to himself in this 
young man who was satisfied to ^*just run around''? 

(c) And then there is the man who does not 
belong to the Church because lie is not good enough. 

My dear friend, if you thought you were good 
enough, we should ask you to go back and giye it more 
consideration before you came to seek admission at 
the door of the kingdom. It is because you are not 
good enough, that we urge you to come. The Church 
is not the home of good people : it is a refuge for sin- 
ners. And if you only realize your own unworthiness, 
and are longing to be better, and feel that you need 
help to make you what you would wish to be — then 
the Church holds out her arms to welcome you. The 



WHY SHOULD I BELONG TO A CHURCH? 91 



Church is not a mutual admiration society^ where 
men and women are admitted who have reached a 
certain degree of goodness ; it is rather a resting place 
for those who are sinful^ but who find themselves 
weary and heavy laden with their sin^ who can say 
that the remembrance of their faults is grievous unto 
them^ the burden of them intolerable. If, when you 
say you are not good enough, you mean something 
of a vague, general character, that you are conscious 
of sin — we answer, that is the very reason you need to 
come. 

But perhaps you mean more than that. Perhaps 
there is some special, definite obstacle that keeps you 
back, some pet fault, some secret disloyalty, some 
besetting sin, that you will not, and have not tried to 
give up. Then, we say, if it is something as definite 
as this, put it away — if for this reason you are not 
ready to come, malce yourself ready. 

Do you remember how the Lord Christ says, ^^If 
thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remem- 
berest that thy brother hath ought against thee [that 
is, that you have wronged him in any way, or are 
on such bad terms with him as would make you come 
before God with a burden on your conscience], leave 
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first 
be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer 
thy gift.'' 

Christ does not for a moment hint that if we make 
such a discovery, we are to Tceep aivay from the altar : 
He says, rather. Go and get rid of this that makes 
you unworthy. And be in haste about it. Do not de- 



92 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



lay. Do not loiter. ^*Agree with tliine adversary 
quickly.^^ Christ does not say^ Let the matter drop. 
He says^ Settle the difSculty. Get rid of the sin. 
Put away the obstacle. And then come and offer thy 

gift. 

If yon mean, then^ that yon are ^*^not good enongh^^ 
becanse yon have some besetting sin that makes yon 
nnworthy. resolve here and now to pnt it away^ make 
np yonr mind to cast it ont of yonr hearty and then 
come — come that yon may^ here with Christy find the 
grace and strength to enable yon to f nlfil yonr resolve. 



XIII. 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHURCH? 

WE have seen that Christ founded a Church, 
which He called His Kingdom — the King- 
dom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven. This 
Church is the home of sinners, founded as the means 
by which sinful men and women are to be brought to 
Him, and through the grace given in its sacraments 
made more and more like Him. We have seen, too, 
that because the Church is the home of sinners it is 
not perfect. Christ made it in all beauty, but men 
have marred its loveliness, and we must wait patiently 
through the ages till His life has gradually cleansed 
ours, till His holiness has accomplished the task of 
making His people holy, and we shall see them form- 
ing "^^a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, 
or any such thing.^^ 

Yes — because those who are its members are weak, 
sinful mortals (and our Lord did not come to call 
the righteous, but sinners to repentance), the Church, 
as an organization of men, is not perfect. But per- 
fect or not, it is the best, purest, noblest institution 



94 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



the world has ever seen. Christ is cleansing it with 
His holiness^, and He has made it the home of truth 
and grace. Those^, therefore^ who wish to know the 
truth about God^ those who feel that they need grace 
to apprehend this trnth and live in its lights should 
come within the kingdom — they should join some 
Church. 

But which one ? How shall we choose a Church ? 
There are many denominations^ all claiming to be 
Christian Churches: how shall we decide their 
claims? how shall we know which is the best? how 
can we make up our minds which to join? That is 
the second serious question, then, that we are bound 
to face: liow to choose a Church. 

\Ye are all acquainted with the ordinary way of 
deciding the matter. A man goes where his friends 
go, or where the members of the congregation are 
most congenial. He joins the same Church of which 
his parents were members. Or he goes where the ser- 
vice and the music are most to his taste. Or he iden- 
tifies himself with some congregation whose pastor 
pleases him, or where the preaching is most accept- 
able. Or worst of all — though he does not confess 
this as his motive, and perhaps is hardly aware of it 
himself even — he goes where he and his family will 
gain social standing and secure an introduction into 
certain exclusive circles. 

In one of these various ways, having once made 
up his mind to belong to a Church, he decides on the 
one that shall be his choice. After all, he says, it 
doesn't really make much difference where I go. The 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHURCH? 95 



Churches are all moving towards the same goal^ and 
working with the same end in view. There are many 
religious roads^ but they all lead heavenward^ and it 
hardly matters much in which one I make my start. 

So, perhaps, you who read this have been accus- 
tomed to talk yourself. But if you will stop a mo- 
ment to reconsider the matter, you will find that this 
question of Church membership is a much more seri- 
ous thing than that. 

It must be plain to you, if you think about it at 
all, that if Christ really founded a Church, the one 
right way to decide which body we shall join is to try 
as best we can to find out which is the Church that 
Christ established. It may involve considerable study 
on our part ; it may lead to much searching of heart, 
and much examination of the foundations of our be- 
lief ; it may lead us to lay aside certain opinions that 
we have imbibed almost from infancy; it may shat- 
ter old and dear relationships — but nevertheless, since 
this is the greatest question in life we shall ever have 
to decide, it should be settled in all seriousness and 
earnestness, at no matter what expense of time and 
thought. The spiritual things are the most important 
things in the world, our relations with God are more 
to be considered than any relations with men, and 
since the choosing of a Church involves our whole 
spiritual development and will affect our whole life 
with God, it should not be settled lightly and care- 
lessly. 

If we have decided to belong to a Church, then, 
and if we have so decided because we believe it to be 



96 THE RELIGION OF THE IXCARNATIOK 



in accordance with, the expressed desire of Christy the 
only right ^ay to make onr choice among the many 
Christian bodies that claim to spring from Him is to 
try to learn which^ in its doctrines^ government^ and 
worship^ is most like the Church Christ founded. TTe 
must ask which resembles the primitive Churchy in 
doctrine unchanged from what the Apostles taught 
and practised ; which has a Church polity such as we 
find among the first Christians; which has a Church 
worship such as the study of the Bible and of history 
would show to be like that of the first ages of the 
Church's life. 

It may be that we shall never be able to decide all 
this^ or it may be that we shall make a wrong decision 
— but at least we can try to find out the truth, at least 
we can enter upon the study with that seriousness 
which the subject demands. Then^ if we have done 
all in our power to discover ^"which Church is right/^ 
and have failed^ we shall not be blamed. 

Just at this point we hear some one say that in 
such a search we are foredoomed to failure — that with 
scores^ and even hundreds, of denominations asserting 
that there we shall find the pure Church of Christ, it 
will be impossible to decide with any certainty among 
their confiicting claims. 

You will allow us to differ with you, if that is 
what you think. We believe you can decide, and we 
are of the opinion that you can decide with no book 
but the Bible in your hand. Let us take our Bibles, 
then, imagine yourselves among some of the scenes de- 
scribed in its pages, and try to see what the primitive 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHURCH? 97 



Church was like. In this examination of Scripture 
we must ask you^ however, to remember one thing: 
that in the case of any dispute over the meaning of a 
passage, we can learn which is the true view by con- 
sulting the early fathers of the Church. What did 
tliey think the passage meant? What, in the early, 
undisputed general councils, did they say about 
Church doctrine ? In their opinions we have the in- 
terpretation of the men who came immediately after 
the time of Christ and His Apostles, as to what the 
Bible teaching means — just as if, for example, in the 
interpreting of one of Lincoln^s speeches, we could 
have the opinion of Mcolay or Hay, or the personal 
recollection of some one who had known Lincoln or 
at least was well acquainted with those who did 
know him. 

With Bible in hand, then, and with this warning 
in mind, let us try to see what the primitive Church 
was. 

(1) We are in Ephesus^ and we hear that the 
great Apostle St. Paul is coming to the city. We join 
the crowds of people who are going to hear him 
preach. Among them are some men who press for- 
ward to converse with him. ^^We have heard,^^ they 
say, ^'^of what you told the jailer at Philippi; and 
many others have received the same words, so full of 
comfort. We remember that you said, ^Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.^ And we 
do believe. We have heard of His wonderful life, of 
His death for us, of His glorious resurrection. We 
believe in Him as the Son of God.^^ 



98 THE HELIGION OF THE INCAENATIOK. 

So they speak^ and St. Paul looks at them^ and 
asks: '^'^Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye 
believed They are puzzled, have not so much 

as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.^^ And 
now it is St. PaiiFs turn to be astonished. ^^Unto 
what then were ye baptized he asks ; and they say, 
^"^Unto John^s baptism."^ 

'^Ah,^^ says the great Apostle, ^^John but baptized 
with the baptism of repentance. His was an act 
whereby men, openly confessing their sins, took their 
place among those who looked for the coming redemp- 
tion. As he baptized the people, he said to them 
that they should believe on Him who should come 
after, that is, on J esns Christ. His baptism brought 
no new grace of life; that must come from Him 
whose forerunner John was, who should baptize with 
the Holy Ghost and with fire.*^ (So we must under- 
stand the brief report of the Apostle^s words given us 
in the Acts). And ^Vhen they heard this, they were 
baptized in the Xame of the Lord J esus. And when 
Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost 
came on them.^^^* 

So we see that with St. Paul something must fol- 
low belief in Christ: the believer must be baptized, 
and then apostolic hands must be laid upon him, that 
he may receive the Holy Ghost. 

(2) But was that the general practice? 

We go back a few years, and now we are in Sam- 
aria. St. Philip is preaching there, and when the 
people believe him thus '^^preaching the things con- 

2* Acts of the Apostles, xix. 1-6. 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHURCH? 99 



cerning the Kingdom of God^ and the Name of J esus 
Christ/^ what happens? ^^They were baptized^ both 
men and women/^ 

But is that all ? Does he not put his hands upon 
them^ as did St. Paul with the Ephesian converts? 
JSTo^ apparently not. Ah^ wait ! It is not St. Philip 
who ^^confirms^^ them^ but the gift is to be theirs nev- 
ertheless. ^"^When the Apostles which were at Jeru- 
salem heard that Samaria had received the word of 
God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, 
when they were come down, prayed for them, that 
they might receive the Holy Ghost (for as yet He 
was fallen upon none of them: only they were bap- 
tized in the Name of the Lord Jesus). Then laid 
they their hands on them, and they received the Holy 
Ghost.^^" 

So, after all, the same course was followed here. 
First, Baptism ; then what we now call Confirmation, 
the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost 
in all His fulness. 

(3) But why did not St. Philip confirm? If he 
baptized, why must an Apostle be sent for the second 
rite? 

Well, we go back a little further, to see who St. 
Philip was. It is in Jerusalem, and among the early 
Christians there have been disputes over the admin- 
istration of the charitable funds — for these early 
Christians were not perfect, you see, any more than 
are the later ones. But now the dispute has been 
settled, and seven men are selected for ordination at 

25 Acts of the Apostles, viii. 12-17. 



100 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



the Apostles* hands into a lower order of the minis- 
try."^ Philip is among these, and^ as Tre see^ his or- 
dination gives him certain powers. He preaches ; he 
baptizes: but he is not of the apostolic order^ he is 
only a deacon, and so he does not confirm or ordain. 

(4) So you say: Xott I see it all. There were 
these deacons and others like them^ I suppose, who 
afterward formed the ministry of the Church; but 
when the Apostles died their gifts died with them, 
and that is the reason so many do not believe in Con- 
firmation to-day: those who could give the Holy 
Spirit are no longer among us. 

Wait a moment 1 There were not these two orders 
of the ministry only: there were three. 

We are in one of the Eastern cities, and we meet 
a Christian who has with him copies of St. PauFs 
epistles to the different Churches which He founded. 
Here is the one to the Philippian Church. St. Paul 
joins St. Timothy with him, and then we find from 
his salutation that there are two other orders of the 
ministry besides, making three in all: ^'To all the 
saints which are at Philippi,'* he says, ^Vith the 
Bishops and deacons. There are other epistles, too, 
and in them we read of presb}i;ers (sometimes called 
bishops), as well as deacons. St. Titus is bidden 
by St. Paul to ordain them in every city (Titus i. 5) ; 
St. Timothy is siven chars'e concernino- them 
(I. Tim. V. IT) ; and in one of St. Peters epistles 
also (I. Peter v. 1) we find him exhorting the elders 



26 Acts of the Apostles, yi. 1-6. 
2' Philippians i. 1. 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHURCH? 101 



or presbyters. Moreover^ these elders^ like the dea- 
conS;, are evidently of the clergy, not merely specially 
appointed laymen. 

Nor does the office of the Apostles cease with 
themselves. ISTot to prolong the subject further^ we 
should find;, if we had the Greek originals of the New 
Testament in our hands^ the following list of those 
who are expressly called Apostles^, in addition to the 
Twelve : Matthias, chosen by lot to be of their num- 
ber ; Paul, ^^an Apostle not of men, neither by man, 
but by Jesus Christ/^ James, whom tradition names 
as the first Bishop of Jerusalem, Barnabas, Andron- 
icus, Junias, Epaphroditus, Timothy, Titus, Silas, 
and Luke. ^^Moreover, they are seen doing the same 
work as the Twelve. For example, history and tradi- 
tion bear witness to the fact that the Apostle Timothy 
was the first Bishop of Ephesus, and the Apostle 
Titus the first Bishop of Crete, being ordained and 
appointed thereto by the Apostle Paul. The Epistles 
of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus not only accord 
with this statement, but are irreconcilably absurd on 
any other supposition ; for they show that these men 
were left by St. Paul not only with power to do such 
things as all presbyters could do, but also to superin- 
tend the whole work of the Church in their respective 
jurisdictions — to give order concerning the doctrine 
which the presbyters were to preach; to rectify all 
deficiencies; to ordain presbyters in all the cities; to 
examine into the qualifications of all candidates for 
the priesthood and the diaconate, being careful to 
lay hands suddenly on no man And whence 



102 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



came all this authority and power? St. Paul tells 
us, for he says to his 'Son Timothy/ 'Stir up the gift 
of God which is in thee ly the putting on of my 
hands/ '''' 

Yes — there were three orders of the ministry, dea- 
cons, presbyters, and Apostles ; and the apostolic office 
is carried on to the successors of the original Twelve. 
Why the name "Bishop^^ afterward came to be re- 
stricted to them we cannot now stop to explain. 

(5) Well, you say, now we have the whole sum 
and substance of Christianity. I must be a follower 
of Christ, baptized in His Name, and by the laying on 
of apostolic hands I must receive the gift of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Again, wait a bit ! There is something more. If 
we are still, in imagination, to company with these 
early Christians, we shall find that they meet for 
worship. They "continue steadfastly in the Apostles' 
doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, 
and in prayers.^^ And this worship, at first daily, is 
always the special feature of Sunday. We are at 
Troas, when St. Paul preaches, and it is on ''the first 
day of the week,^^ that "the disciples come together to 
break bread.^^'^ 

Moreover, the worship is liturgical : it consists of 
''the prayers'' — that is, the usual, well known, set 
forms of prayer, not prayer generally.^"^ 

28 See Little's "Reasons for Being a Churchman." 
2» Acts of the Apostles xx. 7. 

30 See Acts of the Apostles ii. 42 ; the articles are in the 
Greek. 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHUKCH? 103 



And what was the worship ? It was ^^the breaking 
of the bread^^ — in other words, the Holy Communion 
— and it was, as we have seen, not a service to be held 
two or three times a year, bnt every ^"^first day of the 
week/^ 

And how was it regarded? Did these early 
Christians consider it a mere memorial feast? Not 
so. If we still hold in onr hands those Epistles of 
the great St. Paul, we find that he believed that in 
this service the Lord Christ was really present. Writ- 
ing to the Corinthians, he tells them how the Eucha- 
rist was instituted, and then warns them in solemn 
words to be careful to communicate only after due 
and worthy preparation; for ^Vhosoever shall eat 
this bread and drink this cup unworthily shall be 
guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord.^^ Why? 
Because ^^he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, 
eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not dis- 
cerning the Lord's Body," — ^that is, not discerning 
the presence, though it is really and truly there. 

(6) So then, you say, we at last have the whole 
scheme of the Church. We shall do all this ourselves, 
and when our children are grown up we shall have 
them baptized, too. 

But why wait ? If we go into any of these early 
Christian assemblies we shall see not adults only, but 
we shall find baptized children there. St. Peter, when 
he urged the first converts to be baptized, said, ''The 
promise is unto you, and your children^^; St. Paul, 
writing to those who were members of the Church, 



104 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



addresses children as well as adults ; and we hear that 
whole families and households have been baptized — 
among whom^ surely, there were children/^ 

(7) And now, you say, all is clear. We have found 
the Church, we have entered its fold and received its 
gifts of grace. Here we will stay, free from sin, so 
long as life remains. 

Alas, some day temptation proves too great, and 
you fall, and fall grievously. You ask pardon of 
God, but there comes no comfort to your soul; you 
are weak, and you sin again, and with this fresh error 
staring you in the face, you fear that God will not 
forgive you. As you are thus troubled, weary and 
heav}^ laden, you meet St. John. He hears your sad 
tale, lifts his hands over you, blesses you, and bids 
you depart in peace. For you are forgiven, he says ; 
you need not doubt it; my words, as I speak them by 
authority of God, bring you the blessed assurance. 
Did not our Lord Himself give us this power ? Did 
not He say, as He breathed on us, '^^Eeceive ye the 
Holy Ghost : whose soever sins ye remit, they are re- 
mitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, 
they are retained^^ ? 

(8) So, as you depart in blessed peace and calm, 
you think of the angelic face of the saintly Apostle 
and you say, Surely, surely here I have the Church's 
head, here is the father of all the faithful. Another, 
however, remembers the marvellous labors of the 



'1 Acts of the Apostles ii. 38-39 ; Ephesians vi. 1 ; Colossians 
iii. 20 ; Acts xvi. 15 ; xvi. 33 ; I. Cor, i. 16. 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHURCH? 105 

wonderful Apostle to the Gentiles^ and interrupts 
you, No, St. Paul is the head of the Church. And 
yet another, Ko, it is St. Peter : to him the Lord gave 
the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

As we dispute, there enters one who attended the 
first Council of the Church at Jerusalem."" He tells 
us that none of these presided at the council, but that 
its president was St. James, not of the original 
Twelve ; he says that the Apostles, elders, and breth- 
ren (the Bishops, clergy, and laity) there came to- 
gether; he tells us how, many years later, St. Paul 
withstood St. Peter face to face; in many ways he 
makes us understand that the Apostles were equals, 
members of a college, or body, so to speak, and that 
the head of the Chu.rch is neither St. Peter, nor St. 
Paul, nor St. J ohn — its Head is our Eisen Lord, the 
Lord Christ who rules it from His throne in heaven. 

And so you have the picture of the primitive 
Church. What body, of all the Christian commun- 
ions about us, resembles it ? 

You have seen what its characteristics are : En- 
trance is by Baptism for young and old ; then comes 
Confirmation, the laying on of hands for the seven- 
fold gift of the Holy Ghost, and always by an Apostle 
or his successor; then Holy Communion, celebrated, 
not two or three times a year, but every Lord^s Day; 
then, if the soul requires it, absolution by a duly com- 
missioned ambassador of God; there is a liturgical 
worship, as we should expect with those accustomed 



32 Acts of the Apostles xv. 1-31. 



106 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



to the prayers of the synagogue and the elaborate 
ritual of the Temple; there is a threefold ministry, 
of apostolic origin — threefold, as the ministry of the 
Jews (High-priest, Priest, and Levite) would fore- 
shadow. 

What modern communion is most like the pic- 
ture? Surely not the Eoman. Apostolic it is; we 
cannot deny that it is a branch of the One, Catholic 
Church. But where, in this picture of primitive 
Christianity, do you find an infallible Pope ? Where 
do j^ou find Bishops degraded to be merely the local 
agents of a Pope? Where do you see the mutilated 
sacrament? Where compulsory confession? Where 
the excessive reverence of the saints? Where the 
cultus of the Virgin Mary, her elevation from the 
chief place among saints (which is undoubtedly hers) 
to the position of Queen of Heaven and Chief Inter- 
cessor, through whom special access to God is to be 
had? 

Xor does the picture find its counterpart in the 
modern denominations. With them we do not find 
the threefold ministry, the apostolic order, the fre- 
quent Communion, the high regard for the sacra- 
ments, the unvarying insistence on Baptism, and the 
unfailing faith in the Eucharistic presence. There 
we have no Confirmation, no belief in the ministerial 
function of blessing and absolving, no dignity of wor- 
ship. 

Where will you find the purity of the primitive 
Church except in our own dear Mother, in the Church 
which we Episcopalians all love, and into which we 



HOW SHALL I CHOOSE A CHURCH? 107 



long to bring all those to whom our affection goes out^ 
that they may have the same blessings and privileges 
that we enjoy^ and with us may know something of 
^^the beauty of holiness^^? 



XIV. 



THE CHURCH THE EXTEXSIOX OF THE IXCAKXATIOX. 

IX siDeaking of the reasons for identifying one's self 
with the Christian Churchy one suggestion was 
made which it may be worth while to dwell upon at 
greater length. The claim of the Church should be 
urged as something more than a human organization^ 
as the Body of Christ, a divine institution^ the house- 
hold of grace. 

Man^ we have seen^ is a fallen creatnre; he was 
meant for better things. x\nd God the Son has come 
to lift him np once more into the beauty of holiness^ 
that dignity of true humanity for which he was 
made. How^ then, does our Lord accomplish this? 
Our hope in Christy we may answer, lies in tliis : not 
merely that in Him we have a perfect example^ nor 
that His death redeems us from sin; but that with 
sin forgiven and a fresh start made possible, some- 
thing more should still be done — bur corrupted na- 
ture must be continually cleansed and renewed by the 
communication of Christ's life to us. The sacrifice 
of the cross has given remission of sins; the life of 



THE EXTENSION OF THE INCAENATION. 109 



Christ is a model on which we are to build the new 
life, but that life is to be His life within us. Not 
long since, in a railroad accident, a young man was 
terribly scalded. For months he lay in a hospital, 
suffering intense agony. He had been so badly 
burned that the flesh would not heal again fresh and 
clean. Finally the physicians announced that it 
would be necessary to graft new and healthy skin 
upon the scalded members. Friends of the sick man 
offered their help, and hundreds of small pieces of 
skin taken from them were grown on the injured 
parts of the maimed body of their comrade, until 
finally the wounds healed and the man was discharged 
cured. Now something similar to this must be done 
to heal the sickness of men^s souls. We are to be 
-taken into Christ, joined to Him, so that, as it were. 
His flesh and ours come in touch, and in that union 
the health and cleansing strength of His own perfect 
humanity are given to us. We are to be brought 
into direct contact with our Lord, a relation so close 
that our nature is sanctified in Him. So He Himself 
tells us that He is the Vine and we are the branches : 
as the sap flows from the trunk out into the branch, 
so the life of Christ is to flow out into our souls, till 
the strength that is His becomes ours, and we are 
once more full of spiritual energy and power. 

And how is this to be effected? It will be seen 
now why we insist upon the Churches place in the 
scheme of redemption : it is because St. Paul tells us 
that ihere we are brought into this close and intimate 
relationship with Christ. The Church, he tells us. 



110 THE EELIGIOjSF OF THE INCAR^sTATION. 



is the very Body of Christy and by Baptism we are 
brought into that Body^ made members of it^ in as 
vital a relation with its divine Head as are the mem- 
bers of the human body with the soul that gives 
it life. 

The Church is the Body of Christ : we shall see 
what it means^ perhaps^ if we ask what our own bodies 
are to us. The body is but the expression of the life 
within — soul and body are united in the closest pos- 
sible relation^ so that the outer frame reveals the 
inner spirit^ the soul that lies behind it. What a 
mirror of the soul the face is^ for example ! The 
saint generally loolis the saint; the sensual or worldly 
man often betrays his true character in every feature 
of his countenance. Now the Church is the Body of 
Christ: therefore those who are members of this 
Body are in as real a relation to Him as are the mem- 
bers of the human frame to the living soul that in- 
dwells and controls it. When our Lord works His 
will upon men^ He does it by joining them to Him- 
self^ making their life a part of His own^ and bring- 
ing them into union with Himself in a divine organ- 
ism. 

That is part of what we mean when we repeat the 
familiar statement that the Church is the extension of 
the Incarnation. Just as^ at the Incarnation^ the Son 
of God took a Body to Himself^ and in that was seen 
and known of men^ so that they might actually come 
into touch with Him and in the contact of every-day 
life place themselves under His influence — so the 
Church of God now is an organism full of Christ's 



THE EXTENSION OF THE INCARNATION. Ill 

life^ its members parts of a body so closely united to 
Him that they are bone of His bone and flesh of His 
flesh — members of His Body, of His flesh and of His 
bones, as St. Panl puts it — a body in which His life 
flows in sacramental grace, so that by means of its 
sacred ordinances we may come into closer relation 
with Him than did those who looked into His face, 
touched His hands and reverently knelt at His feet 
when He was here visibly among men. There is a 
grandeur and richness in this conception that puts to 
shame that thought of the Church which makes it 
merely a collection of believers, a gathering together 
of those who are trying to follow Christ. We are 
more than that — we are members of our Lord, joined 
to Him by invisible bonds. 

Moreover, this union is not something that we 
can bring about by an act of our own; it is effected 
by our Lord Himself, through the conferring upon 
us of a new life. The gift is so great that we speak 
of it as nothing less than a re-birth in Him. St. 
Paul says that we are actually buried in Christ, and 
out of this burial rise into a new life in His nature. 
In Baptism we ^^put on^^ Christ. The change is like 
the grafting of a branch into the vine, like the trans- 
planting of a seed from a soil in which it could not 
germinate into one from which it can draw suste- 
nance and bud and bear fruit. 

If we can succeed in impressing men with this 
idea of the Church, we shall surely win them to her 
fold. That many hold themselves aloof from organ- 
ized Christianity is not, we are sure, a sign that they 



112 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



are irreligious. The hurry and bustle of modern 
life^ the materialistic spirit of the age^ a dozen other 
things that might be mentioned^ are partly responsible 
for the neglect of Church membership; but at heart 
men are at least as good as their predecessors of 
earlier days^ and if they are not found in their places 
in church on Sundaj^^ it is^ more often than not^ be- 
cause no plain^ definite reason has been given why 
they should be. If the Church were presented to 
them in the way it was set before men in other days, 
results would be very different. We are to disabuse 
our minds of the idea that men and women stay 
away from church because they have no religion; 
they stay away because^ for the most part, the matter 
has not been presented to them strongly on the divine 
side. Their idea of the Church is that it rests on 
very much the same level as a fraternal society. They 
think of it as an institution for inculcating moral 
teaching, and if they do not identify themselves with 
it, the reason will often be found in the fact that 
they have no higher conception of it than this fra- 
ternal and social one. Possibly this is especially 
true of men; they think of the Church, when they 
think of it at all, as a large association doing, in its 
way, very much what other fraternal associations do 
— an organization that is very good in its general 
scope, but is quite unnecessary for them. They like 
to have their wives go to church, and they wish their 
children to go to Sunday school, and they themselves 
will attend some service occasionally; but they do 



THE EXTENSION OF THE INCARNATION. 113 



not regard the Church as having anything in essence 
greater than what a lodge would give them. 

What we need^ therefore^ is to show them clearly 
and emphatically the real difference between the 
Church and all other organizations. They discuss 
the Church now as a society; regard various denom- 
inations as they would look at different fraternal asso- 
ciations^ and would choose one or the other^ just as 
they would choose the Masons rather than the Odd 
Fellows, or the Knights of Pythias rather than the 
American Mechanics, or the Eoyal Arcanum rather 
than either. We must show them that it is some- 
thing more than a society. We must make them see 
that one thing differentiates it from every other or- 
ganization, viz., that it is a home of grace. Various 
societies show men what is good and right and true ; 
the Church does this, too ; but it is not merely that 
the Church does it better than they can ; the Church 
is the repository of God^s grace to enable them to do 
what other societies can only point out and recom- 
mend. In other words, the Church must be pre- 
sented, not occasionally but constantly, as a divine 
organism, not a human society; as the Body of 
Christ, full of His life, offering us divine strength 
and help, giving men grace to do what conscience 
points out as their duty. 

^^Gospel means good news, not good advice." The 
Church is here, not merely to give us fair counsels, 
not to teach us that this thing or the other is right 
and this or the other wrong, not simply to tell men 
that they should be more unselfish and more thought- 



114 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



ful of tlieir brethren^ or even to give them a satis- 
factory form of worship and so lift up their hearts to 
God. All this the Chnrch can do — and do much 
better than any of the human organizations that men 
allow to take her place. But the Gospel^ as we all 
know^ is much more than this ; it is the good news of 
the Incarnate God^ who suffered and died for us^ has 
given us the great model of all living, and now abides 
in His Church, filling it with His own divine life, 
animating it through His Spirit, bringing its mem- 
bers into contact with Himself and so providing them 
with that constant supply of grace, by which and by 
which alone, they can follow in His steps. 

There are one or two simple truths springing out 
of this thought of the Church as the Body of Christ 
which need perhaps to be emphasized. 

(1) We should never forget, for example, that all 
baptized persons are members of the Church of 
Christ. It is surely of value to insist upon this in 
a day when the visible unity of the Church is broken. 
After all, despite our unhappy divisions, there is here 
the germ of a fuller unity. All who are baptized, 
whether they be Greeks, Eomans, Anglicans, or 
Protestants, are members of the Body of Christ. 
They may not live a true life of fellowship ; they may 
in various ways hinder the completeness of their 
union with Christ, their Head; but their member- 
ship remains, nevertheless — it can never, while life 
lasts, be wholly lost; it may always, by grace like that 
which first produced it, be restored and perfected. 
Here is a bond which we all recognize in theory. If 



THE EXTENTION OF THE INCAKNATION. 115 



we would once take it as a basis of practical action, 
it might prove of help to a broader and more char- 
itable effort towards reunion. With ^^Episcopalians/^ 
we know, there are some who pray for corporate re- 
union with Eome and the East ; there are others whose 
love goes out to the thousands of Protestants about 
us — friends, neighbors, relatives — ^but how few there 
are who remember that we are all brethren, and who 
have the kindly sympathy and ready understanding 
to work for a closer unity on both sides ! 

Yet all are members of the one Body. The Cath- 
olic Church is not this or that apostolically organized 
branch, nor all of them together, but the entire body 
of baptized believers. Of these some, indeed, may 
have partially severed their connection with Christ, 
by sin or schism; some may have failed to carry out 
their union with Him to its full completeness; but 
all are members, nevertheless, though by their sep- 
aration from the apostolic order they may have missed 
something of the continued flowing of the life of 
Christ that ever renews itself in the Body. My own 
body has many members, and in some of them the 
circulation may be impeded, so that they have partly 
lost their strength ; but they are members for all that, 
and the body would be but a maimed and incomplete 
thing, if, because they are weak, they were to be cut 
off. This does not mean that every society of Christ- 
ian people is a true branch of the Apostolic Church. 
The organization of the Catholic Church is that 
which is administered by Bishops who are charged 
with our Lord^s commission; but its membership 



116 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



includes all who are baptized in the Triune Xame of 
God. 

(2) Again^ it is this thought of our individual 
membership in Christ that makes the conception of 
the Church just set forth of such practical personal 
importance. If we are ?nemders of Christ, the fact 
is full of the deepest possible meaning. Every sep- 
arate member of my body has its use ; the body would 
not be complete without it, could not do its work 
perfectly if deprived of it : to cut off any single mem- 
ber would be to maim and disfigure the whole. And 
in like manner (we may say it reverently) each one of 
us is necessary in our Lord's Body ; He has for each 
one his special place and his special work; He uses 
us, the least, the poorest, the meanest, the weakest 
of us. Each has his individual work : no one else can 
do it as he can, for he was made for it, and if he 
does not accept the task possibly it will never be done 
at all. 

And this work we do with a strength other than 
our own. I move my finger ; back of it is my hand, 
my arm, the power of my body, the entire force of 
my will. So it is with us in our union with Christ. 
Are we trying to do something for Him and for our 
fellows? Well, back of our weak little effort is the 
Church's strength^ back of that the will of our Lord 
Himself. We are working for Him, we sometimes 
say; rather. He is working through us. All of His 
strength is back of our small endeavor; all of His 
will behind us, all of His energy moving us on. We 
can never fail — we have only to surrender ourselves 



THE EXTENSION OF THE INCARNATION. 117 



to Him^ make ourselves His instruments^ and things 
are sure to come out right. One who is baptized into 
the Body of Christ^s Church ^^finds himself encircled 
by a power of inexhaustible strength and grace^ in 
the might of whose everlasting glory he may forever 
and ever be quickened by undying fires^ and renewed, 
and replenished, and reinvigorated by the ever new 
and ever increasing splendor of a life that can never 
fade, or diminish, or slacken, or fail.^^^^ 

(3) We must be on our guard, however, against 
making this conception of the Church a mechanical 
one. N'o gifts of grace are ever effective independ- 
ently of our use of them. Though we are incorporated 
into Christ as members of His Body, we must, each 
for himself, use the grace that flows in the body, or 
' our privilege has but put us in worse condition than 
before. Without that lively faith which enables the 
soul to grow on what it has received, we are as if the 
hand were bound up, the branch of the vine cut away. 
What are we, except this faith keep us ever abiding 
in Christ? Lifeless, senseless, helpless clay — ener- 
gized and quickened into a body, then, only as we 
breathe of His Spirit and so take in His life. Let us, 
therefore, as we praise Him for the gift of His grace, 
pray that its flow within us may never slacken, or 
the torpor of sloth creep over us; that His warm 
life blood may drive away the chill of unfaithfulness, 
its pulsating strength ever rouse and quicken us. 
We are members of Christ^s Body ; God grant that we 
may never fall away and wither and die ! 

33 H. S. Holland : "Logic and Life." 



XY. 



THE sacea:mexts: the ixcaexatiox applied. 

ALL men fell in Adam^ and the Incarnation of 
God the Son is to effect their redemption. This 
our Lord accomplishes through His Churchy which 
is the extension of the Incarnation^ the Body of 
Christy left here in the world to manifest His life and 
show forth His death till He come. In this Church 
we come into spiritual contact with onr Lord, -we 
are knit np into His sacred humanity, and are 
brought into as close a nnion with Him as that 
which joins a body and its members, a vine and its 
branches. 

We read certain passages of the Bible which tell 
ns of this relation of Christ and His people, and their 
mysterious language of promise is so rich and deep 
that it is impossible to exhaust the fulness of the 
meaning : yet, wonderful as the promises are, the 
truth is so hard for us to understand and realize ; we 
fall so short of what it seems to imply; glimpses of 
heaven open to us, and then we fall back to earth 
again, ^^the soaring spirit'^ held down by the flesh. 



THE INCARNATION APPLIED. 119 



Yes^ we say, all this may be possible, but how can 
I believe that it has happened to me? What do I 
know, what can I know, of such heights of commun- 
ion, such fulness of divine fellowship ? I have never 
felt that all this has come to me; the promises are 
beautiful ones, but so far as I am concerned they are 
unrealized ideals. 

Just here comes the sacramental system of the 
Church as a help to our appreciating the truth of this 
communion with God. Yes, it tells us, there is such 
a life of fellowship ; God^s grace is here for us, and 
here in such fashion that we may indeed come in 
touch with it, thrill with it, as the wire quivers under 
the electric current and the branch throbs with the 
inflowing sap, as the body is quickened and vivified 
by the pulsating blood. There is such a life ; there 
are such gifts of grace, and they come in such a way 
that we have absolute testimony of their reality. 
God knows our weakness, knows how we are bound 
down by what is earthly and material; we are not 
disembodied spirits, we are here in the flesh, with all 
the drawbacks of the flesh, and so when God brings 
us this grace He brings it through sensible channels, 
He makes spiritual things material, so to speak; 
there is always something we can see, touch, taste, 
handle; and so faith is stimulated by sense, and we 
can believe because there is something on which belief 
can rest, which it can grasp and hold. So, for us, 
there need be no fears about the indwelling of the 
divine nature in us. We know we have been born 
again, because we have submitted to that ordinance 



120 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



which is the means of admission into the power of 
Christ's risen life. Tliere need be no anxiety as to 
wliether we have gone throngh certain profound ex- 
periences^ we know when it all happened — the life is 
onrs and it only remains for us to appropriate and 
use it. We know^ too^ that there was a time when 
the fulness of the Spirit became ours^ because at a 
certain moment that was done for us which is the 
ordained means of His coming to men. And we 
know that we have Christ within us^ too^ in all His 
power: in Holy Communion we have the outward 
sign^ the thing that the eyes can see and the hands 
touch, the outward sign as the pledge and assurance 
of the inward grace. 

'Now notice, this does not do away with faith, or 
take its place. We need faith: it is the great neces- 
sity, that personal knowledge of our Lord, that indi- 
vidual apprehension of Him. We need grace also, 
and when grace is offered it is the part of faith to 
appropriate and use it. People sometimes argue 
against sacramental doctrine as if their notion were 
that we regard a sacrament as something that works 
like a sort of charm, bestowing grace by the mere 
fact of its being administered. ^^How can you sup- 
pose,^^ they will ask, '^^that a mere ceremony can 
bring me any grace? Do not the facts prove the 
very opposite? I see so many baptized people still 
living in sin: how, then, can you say that Baptism 
brings a new gift of life ? How can you believe that 
Confirmation is a bestowal of the Holy Ghost, when 
confirmed people so often fail to manifest in their 



THE INCARNATION APPLIED. 



121 



lives the gifts of the Spirit? How can yon believe 
that we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the 
Holy Commnnion^ when it is plain to anyone who will 
give the matter a thought^ that the most regular 
communicants are often far less worthy Christians 
than those who rarely attend church and are never 
seen at the altar ?^ 

The answer is the same that was given in the last 
chapter^ viz.^ that the gifts of God are spiritual and 
therefore should never be regarded as mechanical 
operations. Faith and grace are related^ and '^Vhile 
the sacraments actually convey to us the food of the 
soul^ a gift given from without^ they do us no 
good unless there be a spirit within us awake to what 
is being given^ welcoming the gift and ready to assim- 
ilate or digest it into our spiritual system^' : just as 
common bread cannot nourish us or do us any good, 
unless it be eaten with appetite and assimilated and 
digested.^* The point made here is, that possibly 
grace is brought to us by sacramental means, so that 
the two may react upon each other, and the faith 
which accepts grace is in turn aided and stimulated 
by the means through which grace is given. This, 
because the sacraments are ^^plain and visible tokens, 
whereby we may know what we cannot see.^^ Over 
and over again, in His miracles, our Lord used mate- 
rial means — His own body, His hands, His garments, 
the common clay, the water of Si loam — for the con- 
veying of a healing gift, and just because such means 
were used the faith of men was more easily aroused. 

34 Gore : ''The Creed of the Christian." 



122 THE RELIGIO^s^ OF THE INCARNATION. 

In like manner we^ now^ find our faith quickened by 
the fact that spiritual things are linked with material, 
the presence of the supernatural revealed by its union 
with the natural. 

It would be interesting to consider each of our 
Lord's miracles^ and observe the carr}ing out of the 
same principles. It is sufficient, however, to say 
that in only five out of twenty-two recorded cases of 
miracu.lous healing does He dispense with material 
means. Once, for example, there was brought to 
Him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in 
his speech. In order to work a cure He need not, 
of course, do more than speak the word of divine com- 
mand : but we read that ^^He took him aside from the 
multitude, put His fingers in his ears, and spit and 
touched his tongue.^^ All this was a sacramental 
action; there were the outward signs of the divine 
power at work within; there was that which enabled 
the man to feel that something was being done for 
him, something he could see; the needed faith was 
called forth, and faith being expectant and receptive, 
took the Healer at His word, and the cure was ef- 
fected. 

So, then, faith is needed, and sacraments are 
needed too. Sacraments are the means by which 
grace comes to us. Faith is the assimilative power 
of the soul which enables us to make use of the grace. 
St. Paul joined both together. 'No one could insist 
more strenuously than did he on the absolute neces- 
sity of faith; no one, on the other hand, could state 
more clearly the sacramental doctrine, as when he 



THE INCARNATION APPLIED. 123 



speaks of the "^^laver of regeneration^^ in Baptism^ of 
the bestowal of the Holy Ghost in the laying on of 
hands^ of the presence and power of Christ in the 
Holy Commnnion; and no one conld show more 
plainly the nnion of the two thingS;, faith and grace, 
than the great Apostle, when he says, ^"^We have access 
by faith into this grace/^ 

What we have just seen of our Lord^s method of 
healing is snrely a complete answer to that disposition 
which fancies that the spiritual and the material mnst 
be set in opposition, the one against the other, as 
though they were naturally and inevitably incom- 
patible. All that we see of hnman life teaches us 
the contrary. When we find soul and body influenc- 
ing, and influenced by, each other, we should be 
more than surprised if the material were not asso- 
ciated with the spiritual in the redemption of those 
who exhibit this twofold nature — and our aston- 
ishment would increase at the remembrance that the 
whole process of redemption rests upon the principle 
of the Incarnation, of God made flesh, the spiritual 
possessing and filling the material beyond all power of 
conception. 

And, along this line of thought, does it not occur 
to us at once that the plan of redemption involves of 
necessity, as of the very fitness of things, the em- 
ployment of material means for spiritual ends ? Our 
bodies are to be redeemed as well as our souls; they 
also are to rise into newness of life; and so that 
which is employed in their redemption is one in kind 
with them. We may go further, and add that not 



124 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



only are our bodies to be redeemed, but the whole ma- 
terial creation^ of Tvhich we are a part, is to be lifted 
up with us into heavenly places. Through our bodies 
we are united with the world about us. VThen man 
fell, therefore^ nature fell with him and became 
'^^subject to yanity/*' and when man rises again the 
whole creation will be raised with him. It may be^ 
then, that God uses the things of nature as agencies 
by which His life is brought to us. because in so doing 
He joins earthly things in the redemption of man^ 
the head and representatiye of nature. This, at leasts 
seems to be St. Paul's meaning, when he tells us that 
^'the whole creation was subjected to vanity^ not of its 
own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it^ in 
hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the 
glory of the children of God.'" 

If this view be true, it lifts the sacramental sys- 
tem out of the realm of mere congruity and adapta- 
tion to circumstance, and traces its origin back to 
eternal fitness and necessity. The thought has 
breadth and grandeur, asserting as it does the worth 
and dignity of the body, declaring it to be a 
sharer with the soul in redemption, predicting its 
survival and future development in a higher state; 
drawing on the material world for help, and using 
as instrumental means for spiritual ends things be- 
low the intellectual order, whereby that race shall be 
aided in whose recovery nature herself has an interest 
and a direct concern.^' 



'5 Dix : "The Sacramental System," lecture i. 



THE INCARNATION APPLIED. 125 



At any rate^, we see that the Churches doctrine 
meets perfectly man^s need^ and corresponds exactly 
with his nature. Not, as we said above, does it in any 
way suggest the unexpected or the nnnsiial. Why 
should not grace come by sacramental means ? Is not 
man himself a sacrament : his body the outward and 
visible sign of the inner spirit? Is not the world, - 
indeed, the greatest of all sacraments: suggesting 
through the senses the divine life that lies behind 
its material manifestations? l^ay, as man^s spirit 
is so closely related to his body, is not the whole spir- 
itual world in like manner just as near the material ? 
And need it be surprising that the water of Baptism, 
the bread and the wine of the Eucharist, should but 
veil and hide a presence and power within? Is not 
this, in truth, exactly what lies before us every time 
we turn our eyes upon the wonders of God^s natural 
creation? For do not '^^human science and Holy 
Scripture unite their voices in teaching us that be- 
neath the world of sense, penetrating and vivifying 
it, there is a world of spirit; that what we see and 
touch is but the crust and shell, the outward and vis- 
ible sign of unseen realities, truly present, though 
sense cannot perceive them^^ ?'^ 

"Two worlds are ours, 'tis only sin 
Forbids us to descry 
The mystic heaven and earth within, 
Clear as the sea and sky." 



36 MaeColl : "The Reformation Settlement," v. 



XVI. 



THE BAPTISMAL GIFT. 

EXCEPT a man be born again he cannot see the 
kingdom of God. There must be an entirely 
new beginning. N"o principle can bring forth re- 
sults greater in kind than itself. If spiritual things 
are to be attained^ there must be a vital connection 
with the source of spiritual energy. This is what 
Baptism gives us. It does not at once accomplish 
everji:hing; we must work out our own salvation. 
But it gives us the new principle^ the impetus^ the 
fresh start. 

The might of beginnings ! Evolution has made 
us familiar with the thought. The world did not 
come full grown from the hand of the Creator. It 
began in embryo and has since developed its number- 
less forms of life. What a wonderful beginning was 
that, when the first vital spark touched that cell of 
matter ages ago, and it began to thrill and swell with 
the God-given energy then imparted to it! There 
was the origin of all life, the grass and the trees and 
the flowers, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea. 



THE BAPTISMAL GIFT. 



127 



the living creatures of the earthy man himself with all 
his later development. JSTo step has ever equalled this 
one — from a dead world to the world a moment after, 
palpitating with the first current of life. Without 
that vital spark from God all the rest could never 
have been. 

So, when creation had reached its climax in man, 
there was another beginning. God breathed into 
man the breath of life, and he became a living soul, 
differentiated from the rest of creation by the fact 
that he had a spiritual nature, a life moulded after 
the image of God. It was only a beginning — ^yet 
how wonderful the step, how great the advance from 
brute to man ! 

And now that man has sinned and must be 
brought back to God, there is another creation, a new 
beginning once more. The old nature is not to be 
patched up and made over ; a new one must be born. 
There must be planted the germ of a higher life, a 
seed left indeed to develop, yet without which there 
can be no advancement. Only a new beginning, but 
think of the might of it ! The impetus has been 
given, and the wonder of that new birth is greater 
than all the growth that must yet come before we 
have attained to the beauty of holiness. Whatever 
the future may bring forth, it is this new life princi- 
ple which is the important thing; with that all the 
rest is possible, all is there in embryo, without it 
nothing can be accomplished. 

The wonder of Baptism, then, is that it is a new 
point of departure, a regeneration, a second birth. 



128 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



As such^ it includes pardon^ the wiping out of the 
past; grace;, the seed of the new life; lights the illu- 
mination of the soul for its progress in holiness. 

(1) Forgiveness — ^the cleansing from the burden 
of sin. 

Baptism is the means by which our Lord seals 
- to us His pardon. When we turn to the Xew Testa- 
ment we find it full of the promise of remission of 
sins through this sacrament. St. Peter tells the 
multitude who had been convinced by his preachings 
to '^^repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus 
Christy for the remission of sins"^ (Acts ii. 38). 
Ananias brings the command to the penitent Saul^ 
^^Arise^ and be baptized, and wash away thy sins'^ 
(Acts xxii. 16). St. Paul tells us that Christ 
cleanses the Church by ^'the washing of water (Eph. 
V. 25-26). He reminds the Corinthians, '^^But ye 
have been washed, ye have been sanctified^^ (I. Cor. 
vi. 11). In another place he speaks of the ^Vashing 
[or laver] of regeneration^^ (Titus iii. 5). St. Peter 
says that '^'^even Baptism doth also now save us^^ (I. 
St. Peter iii. 21). In all these texts we have as it 
were but the expansion of our Lord^s own words, ^^He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved^^ (St. 
Mark xvi. 16). ^^Go }^e therefore, and teach all na- 
tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost'' (St. Matthew 
xxviii. 19). 

Eepentance is not enough, nor conversion. If 
repentance is full and sincere, if conversion is thor- 
ough, their genuineness will be manifested in a 



THE BAPTISMAL GIFT. 



129 



simple-hearted^ childlike reliance on our Lord^s prom- 
ise, and we shall come to receive pardon in His way. 
So St. Paul, stricken to the earth on the road to 
Damascus, deeply penitent, thoroughly converted, 
is not yet pardoned. ^^Arise, and be baptized, and 
wash away thy sins,^^ is the message Ananias brings 
him, and he at once obeys. 

In the second Book of the Kings there is a story 
full of dramatic interest and rich in its display of 
human nature. Naaman, captain of the army of the 
king of Syria, was a great soldier who stood high in 
the esteem of his sovereign. With all his riches and 
honors, however, his life was blasted ; he was a leper. 
It is not necessary to go over the story in detail ; we 
take it up at the point where Naaman stands at the 
door of the prophet of Israel, to whom he has been 
sent to be healed. ^^And Elisha sent a messenger 
unto him, saying. Go and wash in Jordan seven 
times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and 
thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and 
went away, and said. Behold, I thought. He will 
surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the 
name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over 
the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and 
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the 
waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be 
clean ? So he turned and went away in a rage. And 
his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said. 
My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great 
thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much 
rather then, when he saith to thee. Wash, and be 



130 THE KELIGION^ OF THE INCARNATION. 



clean? Then went he down^ and dipped himself 
seven times in J ordan^ according to the saying of the 
man of God : and his flesh came again like unto the 
flesh of a little child^ and he was clean/^ 

One thing is very plain in the story. Naaman^s 
cnre was wrought by the power of God. There was 
no healing yirtne in the water of the Jordan. God 
simply nsed it as the outward and visible means of 
conveying a healing strength from Himself. And 
however simple and absurd the remedy might seem, 
Xaaman must accept the cnre in God^s way and 
through the means which God had appointed. His 
acceptance of the means is the test of his earnestness 
and faith. The story, as it were, recites by anticipa- 
tion God's method of cleansing ns from sin in Bap- 
tism. If someone objects that what Jesns Christ 
wants is that we should believe on Him and give Him 
our hearts, we ask, How shall we show our belief ex- 
cept by submitting to the ordinance which He com- 
manded as the means of our moral cure? It seems 
a very simple thing, this baptizing with water in the 
Triune Xame; but to submit to it is to show our 
obedience, our faith, our earnestness. 

The first effect of Baptism, then, is remission of 
sins — not merely justification in the sense of ac- 
quittal, but a gift of absolution carrying with it the 
power to loose from evil and gird up the forces of the 
soul against the weakness of sin. 

Sin, however, is not annihilated by the grace of 
Baptism; it receives its first blow, an assault that 
will eventually lead to its destruction. The sacra- 



THE BAPTISMAL GIFT. 



131 



mental grace does not pluck up the roots of sin^ it 
gradually kills them. There still remains, even in 
the baptized, the '^^infection of nature/^ so that the 
lust of the flesh continues to be felt. In spite of the 
glory attached to the baptized, they still ^^offend in 
many things^^ (St. James iii. 2) ; they must still 
"keep under the body and bring it into subjection^^ 
(I. Cor. ix. 27) ; they must be on their guard to "ab- 
stain from fleshly lusts^^ (I. St. Peter ii. 11) ; al- 
though their "fellowship is with the Father and with 
His Son J esus Christ/^ there must still be a struggle 
against evil within them, sin is still there ; "if we say 
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the 
truth is not in us^^ (I. St. John i. 8). 
(2) Eegeneration. 

Forgiveness is not all that is needed. There must 
be an entire renewal of the spirit; we must, so to 
speak, be re-born. We have only to look about us, 
in order to be convinced of that. ISTo one who has 
ever contemplated the work that lies before those who 
would help and uplift their fellows can doubt it. 
Conscious of our own spiritual poverty, of our weak- 
ness of will and faintness of heart, of the moral evil 
that still lies unconquered within us, we see in some 
who have not had our Christian advantages, a sin and 
depravity that are appalling. And the worst of it is, 
that a multitude of other souls are ushered into the 
world every day with the same dreadful heritage, 
children of the thief, the drunkard, the sensually 
debased ; poor, degenerate, stunted souls, born with a 
burden of disease in the spirit that is worse than the 



132 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



inheritance of physical ill which often presses upon 
them. 

What can possibly effect^ with such, a permanent 
moral change? Education^ culture^ the force of ex- 
ample^ the power of love^ will do something; but it 
does seem that there mnst be a remedy going deeper 
still. The glory of the Christian Church is^ that she 
has that remedy. She has never lost hope^ because 
she believes that all men can be given a new nature, 
that the old self can be thoroughly renewed through 
the application of the life of Jesus Christ Himself. 

In Baptism^ then^ there is not only a death unto 
sin but a new birth unto righteousness — an upward 
life of the soul which begins the moment it is incor- 
porated into Christ. This much our Lord implies 
when He says, ^^Except a man be born of water and 
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God^^ 
(St. John iii. 5) — a verse which all the fathers ex- 
plain as referring to Baptism. The Epistles confirm 
this interpretation of our Lord^s words. St. Paul 
speaks of our being ^^saved by the washing of regen- 
eration^^ (Titus iii. 5) ; he says that "as many as 
have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ^^ 
(Gal. iii. 27) ; that "we have been buried with Him 
in Baptism, wherein also we are risen with Him, 
through the faith of the operation of God^^ (Col. ii. 
12) ; that "we are buried with Him by Baptism into 
death, that like as Christ was raised up from the 
dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also 
should walk in newness of life'^ (Eomans vi. 4). 

Yet it must be remembered asfain that this new 



THE BAPTISMAL GIFT. 



133 



birth is only a beginning, a mighty beginning it is 
true, but only a start after all, and all that follows 
must depend upon our use of the grace given. The 
baptized person is said to be born again, because he 
has been incorporated into Christ by the life-giving 
Spirit; yet through his neglect the life of the Spirit 
may never grow in him. Eegeneration may be com- 
pared to the effect which comes over a seed when it 
has been placed in nourishing soil. Before it was 
placed there the seed had life, but it was practically 
dead until it had received the beneficial effects of that 
transplanting. Again, as in the seed death takes 
place as well as life, so regeneration is a death unto 
sin and then a new birth uMo righteousness. And, 
finally, as the birth of the seed must be followed by 
its growth, and to that end it must have sunlight, 
moisture, and nourishment, so must regeneration, 
with the baptized, be followed by nurture in the Lord. 
We must not only be born again, we must grow in 
the new life — ^yet the growth can come only because 
of the vitality received at birth. So the Church, 
when she baptizes, prays that ^^the old Adam may be 
so buried that the new man may be raised up,^^ that 
^^sinful affections may die^^ and ^^all things belonging 
to the Spirit may live and grow." 

The fact that baptized persons sometimes never 
consecrate themselves to God is no evidence against 
the reality of the baptismal grace. It but shows that 
the gift is not unconditional; the grace appears in 
power and activity only on certain conditions. Only 
the foundation of salvation is laid ; we must build up 



134 THE EELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 

on that by our personal faith. (See I. St. Peter 
iii. 21.) One great argument for Infant Baptism is 
that children cannot erect such barriers against the 
reception of grace as adults^ and therefore if the seed 
can be planted within them^ and through the care 
and attention of parents and sponsors given the 
chance of growth in early lif e^ the little ones who have 
received this blessing are the less likely to fall into 
grievous sin and the more readily recovered if they 
do. ^^Adults may hinder or prevent the operation of 
grace by ignorance^ by indifference, by want of due 
preparation; to their own part must they look, to 
their duty must they be urged by their spiritual 
guides ; but the lot of the children is happier, and of 
such is the kingdom of heaven.^*^^ 
(3) Illumination. 

By this, power is given to the spiritual faculties, 
enabling them to discern spiritual things. We re- 
ceive the Spirit, that we may know the things freely 
given us of God. We have the eyes of our under- 
standing enlightened, that we may see and know the 
truth. Yet this spiritual vision is not perfected all 
at once: like the blind man who was healed by our 
Lord and beheld men as trees walking, at first we 
do not see spiritual things in exact proportion ; grad- 
ually the vision becomes more clear, and we see 
plainly. 

From every aspect, then. Baptism is the begin- 
ning of God's work with the soul. He works by 
evolution here, as He works in nature. God begins 

37 Dix ; "The Sacramental System." 



THE BAPTISMAL GIFT. 



135 



the new creation; man must carry it on in its later 
development. His the original gift; ours the priv- 
ilege and responsibility of using it. His the plant- 
ing of the seed ; ours the work of tending and water- 
ing it^ until it bursts into bloom and brings forth 
fruit to perfection. 



XVII. 



IXFAXT BAPTISM. 

IX the discussion of Infant Baptism^ one is con- 
stantly cliallenged to produce Scriptural authority 
for the practice. Some Baptist friend says : ^^Show 
me one sentence in the Bible ^hich clearly and 
definitely enjoins the Baptism of infants^ and I will 
at once T^ithdraw all opposition to the custom. But 
you cannot do this ; you cannot point to a single pas- 
sage as proof of your position.^^ 

Xow there is a fundamental error in the concep- 
tion of the Bible revealed in the challenge of our 
Baptist friend. In a later chapter it will be pointed 
out that the Xew Testament was not written to give 
men their first knowledge of the principles and prac- 
tices of Christianity: it was written for those who 
had already been instructed in the faith, and who 
did not need therefore that plain injunctions should 
be given them about fundamentals which were every- 
where received. The Bible is not a book which is 
intended to give j)eople their first ideas about the 
Christian religion. '^AU that people need to be 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



137 



taught first is assumed as already known^ all^ for 
example^ that is contained in our Creed and Cate- 
chism. This is not taught^ but referred to. The 
books of the New Testament were intended to remind 
men of what they already knew^ to recall it to their 
minds^ and to build them up in further knowledge 
of it.^'^^ One has only to glance at such texts as St. 
Luke i. 4; I. Cor. xi. 2; xi. 23; xv. 1-4; II. St. Peter 
i. 12, and many others^ to see plainly that this is so. 

There are many things^ therefore — and often 
things of the first importance — which we shall 
not find directly and explicitly stated in the Bible. 
The very things which were universally accepted and 
everywhere practised^ which nobody denied or mis- 
understood^ and about which there was no dispute^ 
would be the things the Scripture writers would not 
find themselves often called upon to mention. We 
must turn, then, to Christian tradition to learn that 
the early Chu.rch practised these things — and we 
shall expect only incidental references to them in 
Scripture^ references that would not be satisfactory 
by themselves but are perfectly plain when read in 
the light of the Churches tradition. 

To take an instance : there is no injunction in the 
ISTew Testament to keep Sunday instead of the Sab- 
bath ; yet we find incidental references that prove the 
practice most conclusively: as^ when we read that 
such and such a thing happened when the disciples 
were met together on the first day of the week^ to 
break bread — a proof not only that the first day was 

3^ Gore : "The Creed of the Christian." 



138 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATIOK 



kept^ but an indication as to lioiv it was observed^ 
namely^ by the celebration of the Holy Communion. 
Again^ admitting the change from the Sabbath^ there 
is no direct commandment that Sunday shall be kept 
by common public worship ; all Christians knew that 
it should be so observed^ and the practice was so gen- 
eral that only when some began to neglect it do we 
see any reference to the subject. And then the inci- 
dental reference is stronger than a direct injunction^ 
as when the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says : 
^Torsake not the assembling of yourselves together^ 
as the manner of some is.'^ 

So it is with Infant Baptism. A study of Christ- 
ian tradition shows that it has always been practised 
in the Church; there never was a time^ in the early 
days^ when anybody dreamed of denying it. Under 
the old covenant infants had been admitted by cir- 
cumcision to Church membership ; and naturally they 
were admitted under the new. There is no direct 
command about it in the iSTew Testament writings^, 
because it is assumed as already known and prac- 
tised. It is both taken for granted and commanded 
in the Xew Testament that all persons are to be bap- 
tized^ and unless one can produce a definite command 
excluding infants from the rite^, it must be con- 
cluded that we should permit them to be partakers of 
it. 

ISTow what do we find in Holy Scripture? (i) 
Our Lord^ having shown His good will toward child- 
ren (St. Mark x. gave commandment to go and 
make disciples of all nations^, baptizing them (St. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



139 



Matthew xxviii. 19). (ii) In the first Christian ser- 
mon St. Peter says: ^^Eepent and be baptized^ for 
the promise is to yon and to your children^^ (Acts ii. 
38-39). (m) There is record of the baptism of 
three entire honseholds (Acts xvi. 15; xvi. 33; I. 
Cor. i. 16). (iv) In the Epistles^ addressed to bap- 
tized persons^ children are exhorted, as well as adults 
(Ephesians vi. 1 ; Colossians iii. 20) as being Church 
members. 

Considering, therefore, the custom of the Jewish 
Church, and adding to that the universal interpreta- 
tion of the matter by the Christian Church, for fif- 
teen centuries, those who deny Infant Baptism should 
show: (i) That Christ meant to exclu.de children; 
{ii) that St. Peter meant the same; (Hi) that there 
were no children in the three households, where all 
were baptized; (iv) that the children addressed as 
Christians in St. PauFs epistles were not really bap- 
tized. 

The truth is, the denial of Infant Baptism arises 
from a misunderstanding of the sacrament itself. 
People confound conversion and regeneration, and be- 
cause they make conversion the necessary thing and 
Baptism as it were a mere symbolic rite through 
which one professes that he has been converted, in- 
fants (as not having passed through this experience) 
are denied the sacrament. The Church, however, 
has always taught that Baptism is a new birth; that 
in it we are given the germ of a higher life ; and that 
while with adults there must be a real turning to 
God to make this grace effectual, infants, as not 



140 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCAKNATION. 



being able to oppose any obstacle to the grace^ may re- 
ceive it and vill find that it helps^ as years go on^ in 
that gradual turning of the soul to God which 
is just as true a conversion as is any sudden and 
violent change of heart in one who has been aroused 
from a life of deliberate sin against Him. 

In other words^ we must grasp the fact shown in 
the last chapter^ that Baptism is two things: (i) the 
sacramental means by which sin is washed away; and 
(ii) a new birth into a life of grace. Having that 
clear in our minds^ we shall see that the infant needs 
both these blessings : (i) It is born in sin^ and should 
therefore have this birth-sin washed away; (ii) it 
needs^ too, the new birth, the being ^^buried with 
Christ/^ the transplanting, so to speak, into a new 
soil, where spiritual graces may grow and spiritual 
fruit be ripened. We all inherit from our first fore- 
father, Adam, a depraved nature, a principle of evil ; 
we are to receive from our Lord, the second Adam, 
the remedy for this evil. And as we have received 
our first birth and its attendant evils, in an uncon- 
scious state, there would seem to be nothing un- 
reasonable in our reception of the second birth and 
its attendant blessings while in the same unconscious, 
infantile condition.^^ 

Two points need yet to be emphasized, before we 
close, as touching the arguments of those who reject 
this doctrine. The first objection is that it is out- 
rageous to our moral perceptions to ask us to believe 
that unbaptized infants are lost. The second is that 

39 See Sadler : ''Church Doctrine Bible Truth." 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



141 



it makes too great a demand upon our intelligence 
to believe that an unconscious child can receive a 
spiritual gift or blessing^ that moral strength comes 
as a response to moral effort. 

As to the first objection : The point is not that all 
infants are lost who have not been baptized. The 
Church has never pronounced on that question. Va- 
rious opinions have been held as to the spiritual con- 
dition of children dying unbaptized; according to 
none^ however^ is it now held that such children are 
lost in the sense of eternal condemnation. Some 
years ago the Eev. James Eichmond^ a brilliant but 
eccentric priest of the American Churchy was hold- 
ing services in a new town in the far West. As 
usual^ a large proportion of the children in the new 
settlement were unbaptized^ and Mr. Eichmond was 
preaching about the necessity of the sacrament. Sud- 
denly he paused in his sermon and said : ^^I am some- 
times asked what will become of the children who 
die unbaptized. Standing in this pulpit and clothed 
with the Churches authority^ I am not permitted to 
pronounce any judgment on the subject^ because it is 
a mystery on which the Church has never been 
guided to speak. Buf ^ — and here he threw off his 
surplice and stole^ left the pulpit and walked down 
into the middle of the church — ^^But/^ he continued^ 
^^I can now speak as plain James Eichmond alone^ 
and I will give you my answer. Will unbaptized 
children be saved ? Yes^, I believe they will. But I 
have grave doubts about the unbelieving parents who 
kept them from the sacrament.^^ 



142 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION". 



On the ground of probability alone a careful and 
conscientious parent will desire to bring his children 
to Baptism. If in that sacrament there is promised 
a gift of new life^ though he may not himself see the 
reasonableness of the promise^ he will not wish to 
take any chances ; he will gladly give his children the 
^^benefit of the doubt.^^ As a matter of fact^ for one 
case where parents withhold their little ones from 
Baptism because of conscientious objections to the 
doctrine^ there are dozens where the neglect of the 
sacrament is purely a matter of religious indolence 
and negligence in giving the subject any serious 
thought. With such parents^, Mr. Eichmond^s lan- 
guage is none too strong. 

As to the second objection^, we reply: The fact 
that children are capable of receiving the grace of 
Baptism seems clearly evident from our Lord^s words 
to the disciples who rebuked those who brought little 
children to Him that He should touch them. If 
children could receive a blessing from Him when He 
was on earth, who shall deny that they can receive it 
now? In three of the Gospels we have instances of 
children thus brought to Christ, that by His ^^touch- 
ing^^ or ^^laying His hands on them^^ they might re- 
ceive a spiritual blessing. What makes the analogy 
to Baptism peculiarly significant is that this blessing 
was to be received through an outward symbol or 
sign. Our Lord was indignant when the disciples 
would have sent the little ones away ; He insisted on 
receiving and blessing them, though they were uncon- 
scious of the significance of what was being done for 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



143 



them. May we not believe that He is just as indig- 
nant at the lack of faith in those who would keep 
back children from Him in these days ? In Baptism 
He touches the little ones^ and His touch stirs in them 
a new life: who shall refuse them this great gift^ 
because they must receive it unconsciously^ seeing 
that their natural life was given them in the same 
state ? 

One thought more^ and we close this chapter : If 
life is given^ it must also be sustained. Baptism is 
a new birth. After birth there must be provision for 
the maintenance of life. Now this is just what the 
Church does in asking that there be sponsors for the 
child who is to be baptized. Eegeneration has just 
been compared to the transplanting of a seed from 
soil in which it could not take nourishment to another 
in which it may bear fruit. But as lights heat^ and 
air are necessary for the growth and formation of the 
seed life^ so the light of God in the knowledge of 
Christy the warmth of the Church in the fellowship 
of the saints^ the divine atmosphere (so to speak) 
taken in and breathed out by prayer^ are necessary for 
the growth of the soul^ and the Church requires cer- 
tain guarantees that these will be provided. That 
guarantee is given in the solemn pledge of the spon- 
sors. Of course^ if god-parents cannot possibly be 
had^ the parents may act^ but this ought never to be 
done except in case of absolute necessity. The 
parents are the child^s sponsors l)y nature. There 
could be no reason in their formally taking the re- 
sponsibility upon themselves at the baptismal service, 



144 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



because the responsibility is theirs already. Their 
spiritual duties as the parents by nature are exactly 
^vhat they would be taking upon themselves as parents 
by grace, god-parents. So. where they may be had, 
other sponsors are required, so that should the parents 
die or fail in their duty, someone may be under obli- 
gation to look after the religious well being of the 
child and see to its proper training in the life of the 
Church. 

Sacramental grace never does away with indi- 
vidual responsibility. AVe must see that children re- 
ceive the grace which is promised to all who are ad- 
mitted into the Church by Baptism ; but we are under 
an equal obligation to see that as they grow into years 
of discretion they are taught to appropriate and use 
the grace for the up-building of their Christian life. 



XVIII. 



THE HOLY EUCHARIST: A SACRIFICE. 

WE come now to the doctrine of the Holy 
Eucharist^ and so important is the place it 
holds in the worship of the Church that it may be 
treated in several papers. It is unfortunate that the 
Holy Eucharist has ever become the subject of so 
much theological dispute. That this which was given 
by onr Lord as a '^^blest sacrament of unity^^ should 
be made a centre of strife and discord^ is one of the 
saddest sights of our disunited Christendom. Per- 
haps if we were satisfied to view the doctrine rather 
in its broad general principles;, the very simplicity of 
such a consideration would make the beauty and 
reasonableness of the truth so apparent that there 
would be less room for disagreement. It is not, 
therefore, the purpose of this and the following chap- 
ters to study the subject much in detail; we are 
rather to look at it in this simpler way, in the hope 
of stating clearly the primitive doctrine of the 
Eucharist, with as little reference as possible to the 
opposing theories of the different schools. 



146 THE EELIGION" OF THE IISTCARNATION. 



We deal first with the Eucharist as a sacrifice 
for sin. 

The element of sacrifice is absolutely essential to 
the spirit of worship. Just as we endeavor to show 
our love for parents or brethren or friends by giving 
them something^ by gladly putting ourselves to little 
inconveniences for their sakes, by surrendering cher- 
ished desires and possessions to show them our inter- 
ested and thoughtful affection — so we try to express 
our love for God by giving Him of our substance or 
our time^ by bending our wills to His desires and 
cheerfully devoting ourselves^ body and soul^ to all 
that may give Him glory and honor among men. 
This leads us to make our offerings to Him^ of what- 
ever sort they may be — just as children pluck a flow- 
er from some plant in the garden^ something they 
themselves have cared for and tended^ that they may 
give it to some loved friend or relative. 

Such is the principle of sacrifice apart from sin. 
Through the Fall^, however^ it has become more than 
this : for what men should have presented in glad love 
and full communion with God^ they must bring to 
Him now in penitence and shame^ in the hope of re- 
storing the fellowship they have lost and as a pro- 
pitiation for the offences which have broken that 
fellowship. In all nations the world over^ therefore^ 
we find this new instinct of sacrifice as a means of 
securing the renewed favor of the deity. Corn and 
wine and oil and fruits and flowers are offered the 
offended divinity ; birds and beasts are slain by thou- 
sands and burned, that the odor may be a sweet 



THE HOLY EUCHARIST: A SACRIFICE. 147 



smelling savor for their god; humaii victims^ even^ 
are hurried to the altar, that their death may be the 
means of saving others. Horrible as the heathen 
sacrifices were, they witness to the natural religions 
instinct of the race, the endeavor of men to atone 
for sin and do worthy, sacrificing service for their 
deities. 

When God therefore selected out of the nations 
a people for His name, He responded to this instinct 
of worship by authorizing a most elaborate system of 
sacrifices. What came now not in gratitude alone 
but as man^s acknowledgment of sin, was taken by 
God, freed of all impurity, and used by Him to ed- 
ucate His people into a realization of the awfulness 
of sin, of their just separation from Him who is 
all-holy, and of the need of some better sacrifice that 
could make them unblamable and acceptable in His 
sight. This was the meaning of all the bloody offer- 
ings that made the Jewish temple, as someone has 
said, almost a great butchery; it was all intended 
to make men feel how dreadful sin was, and how 
much they needed some sacrifice and propitiation to 
place God and themselves at one again. 

And then when the need was felt, God supplied 
it. The blood of bulls and goats could never take 
away sin; the efficacy of these sacrifices lay in their 
union with what was yet to come ; their offering was 
continued as leading up to and preparing men to re- 
ceive the one great sacrifice. God was waiting dur- 
ing these times of preparation, and finally He sent 
His only-begotten Son into the world to be the real 



148 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



propitiation for our sins. Christy by His sacrifice on 
the crosS;, culminating a life of sacrifice and obedi- 
ence^ forever redeemed ns from sin and death and 
gained for ns the gift of everlasting life. 

It is worth noting^ in passings that as our Lord^s 
sacrificial death must be accepted by us in f aith^ it is 
implied that we cannot plead the death on our behalf 
unless we are trying to correspond to the life. Our 
sacrifice must not be the bare offering of another's 
merits it must be an offering of ourselves^ with all the 
powers of soul and body^ in union with the sacrifice 
of Calvary. 

The sacrifice of the cross^ however^ while it was 
onC;, perfect;, and sufficient^ did not end on the first 
Good Friday; He who was priest and victim passed 
into the heavenly courts^ and there perpetually pleads 
the merits of His earthly life and deaths offering con- 
tinually His blood shed for sinners. The writer of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews explains this heavenly ob- 
lation^ by its ante-type^ the entrance of the high priest 
into the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement. As 
the Jewish high priest^ when the victim had been 
slain^ entered within the veil and offered the bloody 
sprinkling it on the mercy seat^ so Christ entered 
into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of 
God for us^ and there as our great High Priest to 
plead His bloody as of a lamb without spot or blemish, 
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 
"Although He is forever seated there, as one whose 
toils are over, yet He is a Spriest upon His throne' 
and is perpetually engaged in presenting on our be- 



THE HOLY EUCHARIST: A SACRIFICE. 149 



half the life which He once for all laid down^ and has 
taken again^ and never needs to lay down from hence- 
forth/^ 

IsTow the same offering which onr Lord makes in 
heaven is pleaded by His priests as they accomplish 
His service on earth. He instituted and ordained 
these holy mysteries as pledges of His love and for 
a continual remembrance or memorial of His death. 
Here at His altar, '^Ve set forth His death, we lift it 
np on high, we magnify it as onr only boast, onr chief 
glory, our one hope. And in so doing the veil be- 
tween heaven and earth is lifted, and we find our- 
selves one with Him in that ceaseless presentation of 
Himself for ns in the inexhaustible virtue of His 
past suffering.^^^^ 

There have been endless discussions as to whether 
the offering of the Eucharist is to be 'connected with 
the heavenly oblation, or with the immolation of 
Calvary. Possibly the truth lies in the union of both 
thoughts. The one great sacrifice of the cross is 
lifted up on high by our Lord in heaven, and by 
means of that sacrament which He puts in our hands 
we plead it also on earth ; and yet as the satisfaction 
of the cross lay in the obedience even unto death, so 
the gifts of the altar, the broken bread and the out- 
poured wine, mystically reproduce the dissolution of 
soul and body in which the passion of our Lord had 
its climax and close. When the priest at the altar 
breaks the consecrated bread and offers it, he lifts 



40 Mason : "The Faith of the Gospel." 



150 THE EELIGIOlSr OF THE INCARNATION. 



up the same broken body that hung on the cross^ and 
re-presents the oblation of Calvary. 

The Eucharist is a sacrifice^, then — a commem- 
orative and representative sacrifice, but a sacrifice 
nevertheless^, in which there is a real offering. As the 
service of the Day of Atonement was incomplete if it 
stopped with the killing of the victim^ and reached 
its perfection in the sprinkling of the blood and the 
pleading of the high priest within the veil^ so Christ^s 
sacrifice must be pleaded in heaven and offered for 
the souls of men on earth. Both actions are essen- 
tially sacrificial^ and in their union man finds his 
cravings satisfied^ and his restored union with God 
made possible. 

One cannot close without showing the practical 
value of this thought. The J ewish high priest, when 
he went in u.nto the holy place, bore the names of the 
children of Israel on the breast plate of judgment for 
a memorial before the Lord continually. And our 
great High Priest, the Son of God, now gone to the 
presence of the Father to offer the avails of his sac- 
rifice, bears on His heart our names, too. What He 
does in heaven He enables His priests to do here ; and 
so every Eucharist, offered at His altar, may give op- 
portunity for special remembrance, so that by offering 
it with intention the merits of our Lord^s atoning 
death may be pleaded for each of us individually, and 
as petition after petition rises to the throne of 
grace each will plead for us all that Christ did and 
does, and each will become a means of special bless- 
ing. 



THE HOLY EUCHARIST: A SACRIFICE. 151 



Are we using our altars in this way, as we should ? 
Let us picture the ideal of what a church should be. 
Sunday after Sunday, and day after day, as its doors 
are opened, we see our people coming together, eager 
to enter God^s house and to kneel before His altar. 
We read their hearts, and find that each has its own 
trial, or trouble, or joy ; we know that each is coming 
to spread this before the Lord. Here is a woman 
whose son is careless, thoughtless, unbelieving, long 
ago he ceased to observe his religious duties, and the 
mother's heart is pained at his increasing indiffer- 
ence ; here is a man whose business has been troubling 
and pressing him for months, who knows not where 
to turn as the difficulties thicken from day to day; 
here are others in whose family life there are dark 
shadows — ^the curse of drink, or the evil breath of 
immorality, has touched some one of the members 
of the home circle, and the others are heavy-hearted ; 
or there are some with near friends or relatives dan- 
gerously ill, or with the gloom of some sorrow upon 
them, or in the stress of some personal trouble, bat- 
tling with doubt or struggling with temptation. Oth- 
ers are here as full of joy as these are of pain— thank- 
ful for some special mark of God's love and favor, 
and coming with light hearts and glad voices to join 
in the praises of the Church. 

And in their sorrow or rejoicing they are not 
alone. The priest at the altar has not been left to 
guess at their needs or blessings; they have taken 
him into their confidence, have told him the evil and 
the good together; and they know that their names 



152 THE RELIGION OF THE INCAKNATION. 

are on Ms lips and in Ms heart as with uplifted hands 
he petitions the throne of grace. Those who are in 
sorrow have not come here to pray alone^ as they 
struggle out of their darkness into light — they can 
pray so at home. But they have come to plead the 
merits of their Eedeemer^ to be present at the lifting 
up of His sacrifice ; they have asked the priest^ when 
He makes the oblation^ to offer it for them, with 
special intention. They are not alone — the Euchar- 
ist has been made theirs^ the merits of Christ^s aton- 
ing death have been pleaded for each individually^ 
and together with the intercessions of Christ in 
heaven the prayers of the congregation^ being united 
in tMs offerings have ascended for each one; none 
has been forgotten^ none overlooked. 

This is our ideal of a church in use : can we not 
each of us do something to make the ideal a beautiful 
reality ? 



XIX. 



THE HOLY EUCHARIST: COMMUNION. 

IlSr the last chapter we considered the Holy Euchar- 
ist as a sacrifice. We found that Christ^s offering 
of Himself on Calvary, to be effectual, must be lifted 
up in heaven and pleaded for the souls of men on 
earth. Both actions are essentially sacrificial; and 
in their union man finds a satisfaction for sin and the 
possibility of restored fellowship with God. But 
while the sacrifice makes our reunion with God pos- 
sible, it is the feeding upon the sacrifice that makes 
it actual. We turn then to the thought of Com- 
munion in the Eucharist. 

To have not merely the remission of sin and the 
removal of the barrier that kept him from God, but 
on his restoration to have sensible fellowship with the 
Almighty — this also is one of man's natural religious 
instincts. He desires to commune with the divinity 
he worships, to hold converse with God, and to have 
some sensible token that God holds intercourse with 
him. 

So we find in all religions some effort towards 



154 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



realizing this communion. The JeTrs had their sacri- 
ficial feasts^ when offerings were made to God and 
then partaken of^ in part by the offerer and in part 
by the priest as the representative of God — thus 
showing that God had accepted the offering and in 
token of restored friendship was now sitting at the 
same board with the pardoned offender. Outside 
the covenant^ there were like feasts where men met 
together to sup with the gods they worshipped. These 
were all efforts at satisfying man^'s craving for divine 
communion — poor efforts indeed^ following exagger- 
ated and degraded notions about the deity^ ending 
often in disaster (for what should have been offerings 
of perfect love and purity became drunken revels and 
lewd debauches)^ but efforts nevertheless. Behind 
all the awful distortion of the heathen worship^ as 
back of all the formalism of the Jewish service^, there 
was a real truths a truth that voiced the instinct of 
every human breast^ the desire of man for fellowship^ 
communion and intercourse with his Maker. 

When our Lord Christ came to found His king- 
dom and to establish the perfect religion, He pro- 
vided a supreme way of satisfying this need, as He 
satisfied all the needs of men. He instituted the 
Eucharist as the means by which we may meet with 
God. Henceforth men were not merely to sup with 
God, they were to feed on God. As He nourished 
their bodies, so now He would nourish their souls. 
He sent from heaven the True Bread that giveth life 
to the world, that those who were His might feed 
upon Him and not die. ^^f any man eat of this 



THE HOLY EUCHABIST: COMMUNION. 155 



bread he shall live forever ; for whoso eateth My flesh 
and drinketh My blood hath eternal life^ and I will 
raise him up at the last day/^ 

As showing how we have here the fulfilment of 
what man^s natural religious instinct had taught him 
to strive for^ it is interesting to trace in what Liv- 
ingston and others tell us of the customs of savage 
tribes^ how ^^a persuasion has existed in the world 
that to receive a man^s bloody i.e., his nature^ is to 
have the potentiality of being made like him^^; and 
how '^^the further conviction has arisen that if we 
would be made like the gods we must receive their 
bloody or in some other way hold intercommunion 
with them/^*^ That^ therefore, which man had been 
feeling after in all parts of the world, and expressing 
in blood covenants, was now to be set forth in such 
memorable terms as could never be forgotten. As 
men had supposed themselves united to a stranger 
and becoming his brother through the drinking or 
commingling of blood in solemn covenant, so (shadow 
growing into substance) they were indeed to become 
united to the Son of God by the drinking of His 
blood and the reception of His nature. 

It is, then, a gracious love feast to which we are 
invited — to which, indeed, we are commanded — and 
to which we must come if we would live ; for ^^except 
we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His 
blood we have no life in us.^^ 

And here emphasis should be laid upon the neces- 
sity for coming in the right spirit, with the earnest 

*i Walpole : "Vital Religion." 



156 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



desire to receive the very nature of our Lord Him- 
self. By this is meant^ not merely coming after a 
certain formal preparation^ bnt rather that there 
must be a real desire to identify one's self with the 
sacrifice of Christ, both in His life and in His death. 
The important thing in preparation for communion 
is this identification of the worshipper with his Lord^ 
this sincere resolve to correspond to His great sacrifice 
by offering our own lives a willing service and sacri- 
fice in return. Coming thus, we are sure never to 
go away disappointed. At the altar^ if our offering 
of ourselves^ our souls and bodies^ has been sincere;, 
we may always be certain of receiving the very sub- 
stance and virtue of our Lord's Soul and Body. 
The gift is mutual, and we must really and honestly 
try to give of ourselves, knowing that if we make the 
offering Christy, in response, actually gives us of Him- 
self^ that so we may have strength to complete and 
perfect in deed what we have thus dedicated in will. 

We know that this is true^ whether we can under- 
stand it or not. AYe look at those around us^, and 
recognize at once the ones who have been fed^ through 
this mutual feast^ at the Lord's table. A divine light 
shines in their eyes and illumines their faces; a 
divine essence flows from their persons and hallows 
their deeds ; they are more godlike than their fellows. 
One can almost certainly pick out those who make 
^^good communions^^ — communions where they receive 
of our Lord because they give of themselves. Other 
men have a measure of religious fervor, of goodwill 
towards men and love to God, but these, despite occa- 



THE HOLY EUCHARIST: COMMUNION. 157 



sional faults^ rise to greater heights; they live and 
move in a higher sphere; they love more than other 
people^ they can do more. They have been fed with 
heavenly food^ and in their lives they show forth 
a celestial strength and beauty. 

The communion is the great fact of the Churches 
life ; it is an essential part of the Christian worship. 
The prayers and praises of the Church lack vitality 
without it^ the efforts of individual Christians come 
to nothing apart from it; it is the centre and source 
of our religious life^ without which all the rest is a 
mere shell. We do not live in the flesh without bod- 
ily nourishment;, nor do we really live in the spirit if 
we have not 4he food that sustains the spiritual life. 

We cannot come to the table of the Lord too often, 
then^ if we come with due preparation and in the 
spirit of mutual sacrifice; it is a privilege to be ac- 
cepted gladly, though with reverence and humility 
and awe. The early disciples continued daily in the 
breaking of the bread, daily they knelt at the sacred 
board; and the highest ideal of the Christian life 
to-day is not less than it was then. At least we can 
let no Lord^s Day pass without our presence at the 
sacred feast, and we can aim at the time when we 
may partake each Sunday, making every week a round 
of thankful remembrance of the blessed gift and sol- 
emn anticipation of its renewal. 

We sometimes hear it asked, why we celebrate the 
Holy Eucharist so often; whether it does not detract 
from the solemn character of the feast to hold it with 
such frequency. As well ask whether we are not in 



158 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



danger of praying too often. Is there an}i:liing more 
solemn than prayer? In it the soul meets face to 
face with God. Yet no one would dream of praying 
only at long intervals from fear lest this solemn act 
of supplication should lose its reality because of the 
frequency of its repetition. Xow the Holy Eucharist 
is a prayer in action; it pleads with God^ and by 
"showing forth His death till He come/^ pleads in 
the name of Christ. This it does on its sacrificial 
side ; and then the Communion is the immediate re- 
sponse of God to the prayer. It is a fact;, of course^ 
that one should not come to the Eucharist without 
due care and reverence ; but our very presence, though 
we do not communicate, will help us: and as we join 
in the frequent oflEering we shall gain the spirit of 
sacrifice that will enable us to prepare more often for 
worthy reception. 

All this, if we once grasp the thought of what 
the Eucharist really means as a feast and supper as 
well as an offering : it means life and happiness and 
union with Christ; it means the continued washing 
and cleansing of soul and body ; it means refreshment 
and peace; it means the gradual change of the re- 
cipient into the likeness of Him whom he receives; 
it means the constant abiding of Christ in us; it 
means that He whom the heavens cannot contain will 
come to us and make us His temple, full of the beauty 
of His holiness and transformed into the image of 
His glory. 



XX. 



THE HOLY EUCHARIST: THE REAL PRESEN"CE. 

WE have already considered the Holy Eucharist 
in its sacrificial aspect^ and on the side of 
its character as a holy feast ; and we have seen what 
the Holy Communion is as the centre and source of 
the Christian life. Now the Communion means all 
this to us^ because it is a real feeding on Chrisf s 
Body and Bloody not merely a subjective contempla- 
tion of His divine character and His earthly work. 
The Eucharist is something more than a symbol and 
assurance of Christ^s presence and activity on our be- 
half in heavenly places; it is the appointed means 
of His actual presence with us here on earth. We 
look next^ then^ at the doctrine of the Eeal Presence, 
as the exposition of the third great fact in this central 
act of Christian worship. 

As men have always longed for restored fellowship 
and communion with God, so have they always longed 
to realize His presence with them. It is not enough 
for them to know that He is everywhere, that He is 
immanent in nature, that His power manifests itself 



160 THE RELIGION OF THE IXCAKNATION. 



equally in the sweep of a planet in its orbit and the 
trembling of a leaf on its stem. Men want a more spe- 
cial presence of God with them^ and in their poor ef- 
forts at worship they have always sought to find such 
a presence. That is the meaning of the idol worship of 
the heathen in all its forms ; for there^ as always^ the 
origin of the false religion lies in the exaggeration of 
a half-perceived religions truth. Men were so 
anxious for a special manifestation of the presence of 
God that they erected some object of devotion as re- 
minding them of such presence^ and then in time 
identified the object itself with the presence it was 
supposed to indicate. 

When God^ then^ chose the Jews as a people for 
Himself; He responded to this longing of men for 
His presence. The mysterious Shekinah was a spe- 
cial manifestation of God: the presence between the 
cherubim that overshadowed the mercy seat was God^s 
reply to man's prayer for a special unveiling of His 
glory. And when the new covenant^ the Christian 
dispensation^ succeeded the old, surely we must ex- 
pect that God would not deny a like privilege to men; 
rather, an unspeakably greater blessing was bestowed 
upon them. God became incarnate : His special pres- 
ence with human nature became a personal union that 
was to last forever : the Word was made flesh and 
dwelt among us. Where Christ was. there God was. 
The Apostles saw with their eyes, their hands actu- 
ally handled the Word of Life. 

So again, when Christ the God-man left earth for 
heaven He did not wholly withdraw Himself from 



THE REAL PRESENCE. 



161 



us; He is yet with His people. Where two or three 
are gathered together in His Name, there is He in 
the midst of them. Moreover, He has sent the Spirit 
to tabernacle with us, to make each one of us a 
temple where He may dwell, so that He inhabits the 
heart of a baptized believer as He does not dwell else- 
where. 

And then lastly, as a revelation of His special 
presence, our Lord has ordained the holy mystery 
of the Eucharist, in which as a pledge of His love He 
vouchsafes to come to us in a new way. When He 
instituted the Holy Supper, He took bread, and 
blessed, and brake it, saying to His disciples, "This 
is My Body: this is My Blood.^^ He spoke without 
qualification, as He had spoken to the Jews in Ca- 
pernaum a year before, when He told them that the 
bread which He would give was His flesh, which He 
would give for the life of the world. 

It is commonly objected to this view that our 
Lord^s words here are purely figurative. Figurative 
they are, in a sense. Plainly so, for when He used 
the words ''This is My Body ; this is My Blood,'' His 
Body stood before them unimpaired, and He was 
surely not speaking in the ordinary way. The diffi- 
culty is that when men say that His language is fig- 
urative, they seem to think that to call it so is to 
empty it of all meaning. Whereas nearly all spir- 
itual language is to a certain extent figurative; its 
figurative character, however, warns us that the mean- 
ing to be conveyed is not less, but more; the figure 
calls for a heavier burdening of the language, the 



162 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



soul of the words is charged with a greater mission. 
It is a figure of speech to speak of God as our Father; 
yet in what words could the great truth that was to 
be told be better revealed than in those which bid us 
see in heaven the divine counterpart of fatherhood on 
earth ? 

So here, if the language be figurative it is not on 
that account emptied of meaning ; rather it is charged 
with a richer and deeper thought. The inner con- 
ception must be at least as great as the figure itself. 

What our Lord said, then^ the Church has always 
taught. She declares that when the bread and wine 
of the Eucharist are consecrated they become in some 
real^ though mysterious, spiritual way. an actuality 
so great that we can speak of it only as the very Body 
and Blood of Christ Himself. She cannot explain 
Jioic the change is made: for Christ Himself did not 
explain it. When men object to the doctrine she 
can but repeat it in faith : she can say no more than 
her Lord, and He but reiterated His words when the 
unbelieving disciples found His language too hard 
for them. And so the Church has stated the fact, 
and for a thousand years men were content to kneel 
before the sacred food, believing though they could 
not understand. Then came the denial of the mys- 
tery by some who withdrew from the Church and 
placed themselves in hostile array against her; and 
still again this Eucharistic concord was broken by 
those who. in their anxiety to defend the doctrine, 
forgot the truth that the figurative is the expression 
of the real and in an excessive insistence upon a lit- 



THE EEAL PRESENCE. 



163 



eral interpretation attempted to answer that question, 
^^How?^' to which our Lord at the outset declined to 
reply. 

The philosophy of the presence had been discussed 
for years, and then the Koman Church added to 
the Catholic teaching an alleged explanation of the 
ivay or manner in which Christ is present in the 
Eucharist. This metaphysical explanation is called 
^^Transubstantiation.^^ The Bishop of Springfield 
has somewhere said that this desire to explain is ^^as 
if we all held and taught that a living man on earth 
is an entity composed of body and spirit, and there we 
stopped; but some venturesome people went beyond 
this explanation, alleging that the connecting link 
which united the two and made man a living being 
was the saline principle in the blood, and then insisted 
that unless we accepted their solution of the mystery 
of life they would have no dealings with us.^^ Tran- 
substantiation and the Eeal Presence are not one and 
the same thing. The one doctrine is an attempt to 
explain the other, and while the Anglican Church has 
rejected the explanation, she holds carefully to the 
fact which it seeks to explain. In the philosophical 
language in which it is couched, the Eoman doctrine 
is capable of an orthodox interpretation; but in the 
popular understanding of the term it overthrows the 
nature of a sacrament and because of its slavish fol- 
lowing of the literal, leads to superstition and error. 

As to what we mean by the Eeal Presence, how- 
ever, a simple explanation will be found in the 
familiar ^^parable of the magnet.^^ Take a bar of steel 



164 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



and rub it with a lodestone. You cannot see any 
change in it^ examine it as you will — it looks just 
what it was before. And yet^ as a matter of fact^ it 
has become something more : it is now a magnet^ and 
in^ with^ and under the steel there exists a new power. 
So^ in the Holy Eucharist^ the bread and wine, after 
consecration, seem to be exactly what they were be- 
fore^ and yet they^ too. have become something more, 
the Body and Blood of Christ. Xot ceasing to be, 
materially, what they were, they have become, spir- 
itually, what they were not. There is, in, with, and 
under the material things, a spiritual Eeality, whose 
power can be received, whose influence felt. 

By the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist 
is meant that He is truly and really there. Eeal does 
not mean material. The most real things are the 
spiritual things. The most real thing about myself 
is not my body, but my soul, that thing that gives 
me individuality and makes me myself. And the 
most real thing about the Holy Eucharist is not the 
outward symbol, the bread and wine that we see, but 
the hidden Presence, spiritual yet none the less 
actual, the Presence of Him who promised to make 
this feast the means of communicating to us His own 
very life. His strength. His power : in short, Himself. 

We have in the Eucharist an exact counterpart 
of the Incarnation. Christ was God, and without 
ceasing to be God, He became man. He is human, 
and at the same time He is divine ; and He exists as 
one person in the perfection of both natures. So the 
Eucharistic elements are bread and wine, and at the 



THE EEAL PRESENCE. 



165 



same time they are the precions Body and Blood. 
They have not ceased to be the first by becoming the 
second; they are not less the second because they re- 
main the first. It may be questioned whether^ in 
most cases^ those who refuse to believe in the fact of 
the Eucharistic presence have ever seriously con- 
templated the fact of the Incarnation^ have ever fully 
realized that Christ from the very moment of His 
conception was still God^ that as He lay on Mary^s 
breast He was the Supreme Head of the universe^ as 
He hung upon the cross dying in agony He was pres- 
ent in all creation ruling by His power. 

We^ then^ who believe in the Incarnation^ believe 
also in the Eucharistic extension of its blessings^ we 
believe though we cannot understand or explain. 
^'Guided by Scripture/^ says an Anglican theologian 
whose work is recommended by the Bishops of the 
American Church — ^^guided by Scripture^ the Church 
establishes only those truths which Scripture reveals^ 
and leaves the subject in that mystery in which God 
for His wise purposes has invested it. Taking as her 
immovable foundation the words of Jesus Christy 
'This is My Body/ This is My Blood/ and 'Whoso 
eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath eternal 
life/ she believes that the Body or Flesh and the 
Blood of Jesus Christy the Creator and Eedeemer of 
the worlds both God and man^ united indivisibly in 
one person^ are verily and indeed given to^ taken, 
eaten, and received by the faithful in the Lord^s 
Supper, under the outward sign or form of bread and 
wine. She believes that the Eucharist is not the 



166 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



sign of an absent body, and that those who partake of 
it^ receive not merely the figure^ or shadow^ or sign 
of Christ^s Body, but the reality itself. And as 
Christ^s divine and human natures are inseparably 
united, so she believes that we receive in the Euchar- 
ist not only the Flesh and Blood of Christ, but Christ 
Himself both God and man/'" 

This is the grandeur and beauty of the altar : that 
it is Christ's throne, where He waits to meet and bless 
His people. Here the Churches service reaches its 
fitting climax, so human is this sacrament, while yet 
so divine : so human, for the gift is hidden under nat- 
ural signs and veiled as being too bright for mortal 
eyes to gaze upon; so divine, for its mystic power 
seems ever ready to burst into a flame of glory. 
'^^Surely, the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. 
This is none other but the house of God, and this is 
the gate of heaven.^^ 



*2 Palmer on the Church, Part II., chapter vii. 



XXI. 



PREPAKATION rOR HOLY COMMUNIOlSr. 

HOW should one prepare for Holy Communioii ? 
What amount of preparation is necessary? 
What is a ^"^good^^ commnnion ? These are questions 
often asked of every priest who is trying to instruct 
his people in the Churches ways. 

By way of answer^ we may repeat what has al- 
ready been said^ that generally speaking a right ap- 
proach to the Holy Communion means not so much 
coming after a formal preparation as it does coming 
in the spirit of sacrifice^ with a genuine and hearty 
desire to live Christ^s life and be '^^crucified with 
Him^^ in His perfect offering of Himself^ soul and 
body;, to His Father. After all^ as someone has said, 
since Holy Communion is above everything else food 
for the soul, we must come to the altar because we 
are spiritually hungry. The fundamental prepara- 
tion for communion is a life of such earnestness and 
unselfishness that one is compelled to come in order 
to receive grace and strength to carry on this daily 
work. The best preparation for a worthy communion 



168 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCAENATION. 



is ^^a life of service^ so unselfistL and exacting that it 
demands God, in order to live it/^ 

Yet we need method here as in eYerji;hing else, 
and in order to avoid a vagueness in preparation it is 
well to have some particular form of thought and 
prayer for nse before approaching this holy feast. 
Such forms are given us in every manual of devo- 
tion, and it would be a safe rule for most of us to nse 
at least this much of preparation before every com- 
munion. 

To say such offices^ however, should be but a mini- 
mum of devotion. There ought to be an effort to 
supplement this by some special thought and medita- 
tion of our own. Along these lines there are many 
methods that may be recommended. 

(1) For example^ one way of preparation is by 
examination for sin. How often this simply consists 
of reading over the questions in a manual and men- 
tally acknowledging our faults under the several divi- 
sions. What we need, rather, is a serious searching 
of the heart for particular sins, with enough time 
given to this one single search to make the heinous- 
ness of the offense plain to one's own conscience. We 
take a review of the week, asking ourselves if we have 
struggled against any one particular fault. Then we 
ask what sin we most need to fight against. What is 
the sin I have committed oftenest since my last com- 
munion? What is the fault I most hesitate to con- 
fess ? What is the thing I should be most ashamed to 
have others know about? What shames me most 
when I think of facing God at the judgment? So 



PREPAEATION FOR HOLY COMMUNION. 169 



we take this sin^, and come to the Eucharist, asking 
strength to overcome it^, and as we ask for the grace 
resolving to make our own effort also. 

(2) Again, we may vary this method by fixing 
upon some one sin^ and then with regard to that, 
asking ourselves three questions as we look forward 
to our communion: Who is coming to me in this 
sacrament ? To whom is He coming ? Why does He 
come? Suppose we are struggling against a sharp 
temper. We ask: 

(i) Who is coming to me in this sacrament? 
My Lord Himself. He who suffered every indignity 
at the hands of His persecutors — who was struck in 
the face, spit upon, mocked, insulted, and when He 
was reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered He 
threatened not. He who as He hung on the cross, 
with the nails piercing His hands and feet, with 
every muscle wrung and wrenched as the cross sunk 
into its place, was able, even in the agony of suffer- 
ing, to pray for those who tortured Him, "Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do.^^ 

(ii) To whom is He coming? To me who pre- 
tend to be His follower, who have His sign upon me, 
who am named with His name, and would be offended 
if men did not call me a Christian — and yet to me 
who cannot bear one trying word or slight, who spoke 
so sharply to such an one only yesterday, who lost 
my temper this morning, who criticize at the slight- 
est provocation, and say biting, sarcastic, angry 
things to the ones who love me most. 

(iii) And why does He come? To make me 



170 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



more like Himself^ patient^ gentle^ sweet tempered, 
and ldIldl3^ 

We may vary the questions from week to week, 
taking one fault at a time. Suppose the sin be sloth- 
fulness in prayer. 

(i) Who is coming? My Lord, who though He 
was often so pressed with work that He had not so 
much as time to eat and drink, yet always found 
opportunity for deyotion; rose a great while before it 
was day that He might be alone with His Father; 
spent the whole night sometimes in intercession; eyen 
on the cross, though suffering physical agony beyond 
description, used His last moments in prayer. 

(ii) To whom is He coming? To one who rose 
so late this morning that he had time only for a 
hurried sentence, said so unthinkingly that probably 
it neyer reached the ears of God: to one who yester- 
day put off his deyotions till night, and then hurried 
oyer them when tired and half asleep; to one who 
needs grace so much to correct his many faults, and 
yet time and again neglects to pray for it. 

(iii) And why is He coming? To help me to 
realize His continual presence, and in my prayers to 
speak to Him face to face. 

We take our own sins, whateyer they may be, and 
selecting one for each communion, ask these ques- 
tions, pau.sing oyer them in meditation, and then 
during the week after communion going back and in 
our nightly self-examination asking if we haye im- 
proyed in this one point. 

(3) Or suppose, before each communion we hit 



PREPAEATION FOR HOLY COMMUNION. 171 



upon one duty which we shall try to perform more 
carefully^ more eagerly^ more lovingly. Suppose we 
find some one person we can help^ some one act of 
usefulness we can perform^ some one domestic kind- 
ness that may be cultivated^ something in the busi- 
ness life or the social round in which we may apply 
our Christian principles^ and then set ourselves ear- 
nestly the task of doing this. By the time of our 
next communion it would create such a compelling 
need of God in our hearts that we should consider 
this Eucharist not a duty but an absolute necessity. 
"Hard work will make a man hungry for his daily 
bread/^ says the chaplain of one of our Church Uni- 
versities^ "and nothing but hard work and unselfish 
living will make a man hungry for God.^^ 

(4) Again^ we may prepare for some Eucharist 
by passing to the thought of thanksgiving. One is 
apt to grow morbid over the searching for sin — how 
much brighter and sweeter will be our life if we also 
seek to remember the many things for which we 
should be grateful ! Coming to communion with our 
hearts full of love for some special blessings we shall 
find the thought of thanksgiving continually recur- 
ring throughout the whole Prayer Book service. In 
the prayer for the Church Militant we ''give thanJcs 
for all men.^^ The Absolution brings the thought of 
thankfulness for the forgiveness of the sins we have 
just confessed^ and the Comfortable Words carry out 
that expression of gratitude ; in the Prayer of Conse- 
cration we render hearty thanks for the innumerable 
benefits procured unto us by Christ^s passion^ deaths 



172 THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



resurrection, and ascension, and vre desire God to 
accept the offering as a sacrifice of praise and thanl's- 
giving; and so throughout. 

(5 j Or there is also the element of praise and wor- 
ship^ and we niav, for preparation some week, read 
over the service to fix upon certain ways of expressing 
this, praying meanwhile that God will give ns the 
spirit of worship, the adoring spirit, that worship 
may become our chief joy here, as it must be in 
heaven. The service begins with the prayer for the 
cleansing of our hearts that we may magnify God's 
Holy Xame: the Siirsiim Corda and Sanctns lift us 
icto the atmosphere of heavenly adoration : the prayer 
of consecration begins and ends with praise, ^"All 
glory be to Thee, Almighty God, our heavenly 
Father,'* and ''By whom and with whom, in the 
unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto 
Thee, Father Almighty, world without end,** and 
the strain is repeated in the Gloria in Excelsis, as 
well as in other portions of the service. 

So, for example, we may make our preparation 
some week lie in the effort to realize more fully that 
the Eucharist binds our earthly worship vrith that 
of the saints and angels in heaven. We recall such 
a picture as that in St. I\Iargaret's Church, Liver- 
pool, ^^in the upper part of which is a representation 
of the adoration of the Lamb that had been slain, 
the ineffable Victim lying upon the celestial altar, 
angels and saints being around Him; in the lower 
part, an earthly altar properly vested and decorated, 
on it the chalice and paten, a priest in front with 



PEEPAEATION FOR HOLY COMMUNION. 173 



arms extended as he makes the sacrificial prayer^ and 
kneeling by him a company of the faithful, men, 
women, and children; and as explanatory of the two 
scenes, as it were unifying and identifying them, 
streams of golden light issuing from the Lamb above 
and descending upon the sacred vessels below/^ So 
we realize that what the Church on earth is doing in 
Eucharistic worship that same thing the Church in 
heaven is doing at the same moment in like adora- 
tion, and that the priest is fulfilling here the service 
of Him who represents us and pleads for us in 
heaven. 

With this picture in mind, we go over the service 
again, finding the idea brought out, for example, 
in the Sanctus, where with angels and archangels 
and with all the company of heaven we laud and 
magnify God^s glorious name as we join in the 
seraphic hymn. Meditation on this one thought 
through the previous week will make our worship 
very real at the next Eucharist ; and if we come also 
with special intercessory intention our prayers will 
be more fervent also, as we ask this thing or that for 
our friends, ourselves, or the Church at large. 

And speaking of special intentions, it is always 
possible to give great reality to the service by making 
it an occasion of intercession for those whom we know 
who are "^^in trouble, sorrow, need^ sickness, or any 
other adversity,^^ as well as of mingled thanksgiving 
and prayer for those who have departed this life in 
God's faith and fear. 

(6) Once more, we may use the various parts of 



174 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



the service itself as a basis of meditation^ seeking to 
bring the imagination into play : thus^ at the Offertory 
praying for generosity and picturing the poor widow 
as she cast her two mites into the treasury; at the 
Confession^ asking for such penitence as that of the 
publican ; at the Absolution^ seeing our Lord bending 
over the man with the palsy and saying to him^ ^^Son^ 
be of good cheer : thy sins be forgiven thee^^ ; at the 
Prayer of Humble Access^ seeing the woman that had 
been a sinner prostrate at our Lord^s feet^ bathing 
them with her tears and wiping them with her hair. 

(7) Or we may follow the division of the Church 
year^ and so at different seasons vary our thought 
of the Eucharist : at Christmas^ making it turn on the 
Eeal Presence ; in Lent^ on the thought of Sacrifice ; 
at Easter^ on the joy of sin forgiven; or at Ascension^ 
we may try to picture as above the heavenly oblation 
and connect it with that on earthy so that with angels 
and archangels and all the company of heaven we may 
join in magnifying God^s holy N"ame. 

What we need is more than the formal saying of 
an office from some manual of devotion; we should 
have something that will quicken the imagination^ 
stir up devotion, and give freshness to each com- 
munion. And surely no one is so busy as to be un- 
able to set aside a little time for this — if it be only 
a quarter of an hour the evening before, a little time 
before the service in church, or in the case of a 
busy man, some brief thought, with eyes closed, as 
he goes to and fro on train or car to his office or 
work. 



XXII. 



CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 

LET US approach this subject in a devout frame 
of mind and in no disputatious spirit. The 
question has to do with the most serious concern of 
life^ the removal of the barrier that separates us 
from God. It will be absolutely useless^ therefore, 
to discuss it with one who does not realize the awful- 
ness of sin. There must be something more than a 
readiness to confess that we have faults and failings. 
If we have not the consciousness of personal guilt 
present and disturbing the soul, a sense of the griev- 
ousness of sin, a feeling that in our own case its 
burden is intolerable, then we are not in a mood to 
discuss any method by which it is proposed to bring 
us the blessing and peace of forgiveness. Let this 
chapter, then, be for those who know what sin is, 
who are troubled and concerned about its presence 
within them, who with all their heart desire to be 
rid of it and to be wholly turned to God. So often 
questions about confession are asked in a flippant 
or argumentative spirit. It never does any good to 



176 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



try to answer tliem. if tliev are so asked. But if it 
be realized that sin is a dreadful reality, awful in 
character^ deadly in its consequences^ and that to 
discuss it is a solemn and serious matter — in that 
case a quiet consideration of the subject of confession 
may be helpful. 

At the outset it will be well to emphasize at once 
the fact that no one dreams of asserting the power 
of a priest, in himself, to forgive sins. God only 
can do that^ He only knows the heart of man. and He 
only can pronounce pardon. It is well to note^ how- 
ever, that the pardoning authority is exercised by 
the Second Person of the Godhead. ''AH judgment 
is committed to the Son** — who. because He has be- 
come incarnate and has lived our life in its weakness 
and limitations, brings us the assurance that we are 
judged by One who has experienced our temptations, 
is perfectly acquainted with our infirmities and ten- 
derly pitiful of our failings. 

As if to emphasize this, our Lord once worked a 
miracle to prove His possession of the authority. 
^'That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power 
on earth to forgive sins — then saith He to the sick of 
the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine 
house.** It is significant that the power is exercised 
by Him, not in His divine nature only, but through 
His humanity. ^'The Son of Man hath power on 
earth to forgive sins,** He says. ^'He hath authority 
to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of 
Man/' 

Let us notice just one more fact : that in the 



CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 177 



first offering of His pardon to the penitent soul our 
Lord Christ bestows the gift by means of a sacra- 
ment. We need not go over the whole subject of 
Baptism again ; enough to say that conviction of sin, 
conversion to God, and faith in Christ are not all that 
the sinner needs ; if these are real, they will lead him 
to our Lord, in childlike submission to His will, 
to receive pardon in the way He offers it, by comply- 
ing with the simple rite which He ordained for the 
healing and cleansing of our moral nature. Here, 
then, we have reached a point where a remarkable 
fact appears: that God the Son, in offering to re- 
move the burden and guilt of sin, attaches the gift 
to outward, visible, material means, and not only that, 
but uses weak and fallible men as His instruments in 
the application of these means. It surely is no 
straining of logic to assert that if God uses His min- 
isters in the bestowal of the first pardoning gift in 
Baptism, He may also use them in renewing our 
baptismal purity when we have again fallen into sin. 
And this is exactly what Absolution does for us— 
it is, as it were, a re-application of our original bap- 
tismal blessing, a daily proffer of pardon, given 
through outward means and by the authoritative voice 
of God's minister. 

How else but on this theory shall we explain the 
passages wherein our Lord gives special authority 
to the Church and her ministry in dispensing the 
forgiveness which He came to impart? '^^As My 
Father hath sent Me, even so send I you,'' He says to 
His Apostles. He breathed on them, and said, ^^Ee- 



178 THE RELIGION OF THE I^'CARXATIOX. 



ceive ye the Holv Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit 
they are remitted unto tliem. and whosesoever sins 
ye retain tliey are retained."' Xor is the authority 
given to tlie Apostles alone: it is to pass on to their 
successors. Telling them that they are to receive 
power from on high and are to go into all the world 
and preach the gospel to every creature. He adds a 
word which was not fulfilled in them personally but 
will be in those who have afterward entered upon the 
same office. ^'Lo. I am with you always even unto the 
end of the world.'"' 

Our Lord. then, is the true source of forgiveness; 
He exercises His power as Son of Man in His human 
nature : He appoints others to carry on the pardoning 
work after His ascension in His name; He endows 
them with the Holy Ghost for their office, and He 
provides that the authority given them shall pass to 
their successors, with whom He guarantees His pres- 
ence as long as time shall last. 

The place of confession and absolution in the 
Christian life is seen, therefore, to be of a piece with 
sacramental doctrine in general. Just as God uses 
material means in Baptism for conveying forgiveness 
and new life to the souh just as in Holy Communion 
the soul's food is given through outward and visible 
signs, so here God offers a special gift to the penitent, 
attaching it to an outward form, the human voice, 
the solemn gesture of benediction, the words of cov- 
enanted meaning. There is no question, however, 
of human intervention in God's gift of pardon. He 
and He only forgives, and there can be no doubt that 



CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 179 



He freely forgives all in whom He sees the move- 
ments of contrition. But for our sake^ that we may 
be helped to a knowledge of self^ that there may be 
fostered in us a real and sincere sorrow for sin^ and 
that onr faith may be quickened to a deeper realiza- 
tion of His cleansing grace^ He has provided this 
special sacramental means of imparting pardon and 
grace^ using for that purpose as His authorized agents 
and representatives the ministers of His Church. 
They are His ambassadors^ speaking in His name; 
He has committed to them a ^^ministry of reconcil- 
iation.^^ 

In all that has been said thus far there need be 
no reference whatever to what is known as auricular 
confession. Though theologians dispute the pointy 
it may safely be laid down that the cleansing grace 
of Absolution is received in the public offices of the 
Church as truly as in the private administration 
of the sacrament of penance. The use of private 
or auricular confession is purely a matter of dis- 
cipline and practical utility; doctrinally it differs in 
no way from public and general confession. "^^In it- 
self^ so far as the movement of grace is concerned, 
the absolution is the same^ whether public or private. 
The difference lies in the method of preparing to 
receive it. If souls are able to grasp it for them- 
selves as firmly, it is as valid and full when uttered 
in a general formula to a thousand together as when 
uttered to them one by one.^^" 

Yet it may be questioned whether many of us 

*3 Mason : "The Faith of the Gospel." 



180 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



have so complete a knowledge of self or so intense 
and vivid a realization of God's presence^ that we 
can put into the general confession the same deep 
penitence as into a particular confession^ or receive 
from the general absolution the same comfort and 
confident assurance as from words addressed to ns 
individually. "While we frankly acknowledge, then, 
that private confession should not be urged indis- 
criminately upon every soul, and while we freely ad- 
mit some of the dangers that surround it, it does 
seem that for most of us God is meeting here a real 
craving of the soul. A natural impulse leads us to 
some particular confession, not to God only but in the 
presence of others. So it was with those who were 
baptized by St. John in the Jordan, ^^confessing their 
sins**; so with those at Ephesus who had been con- 
victed of sin and ^'came and confessed and showed 
their deeds."' Practically, in the case of many of 
us, we do Iniow that it deepens humility and quickens 
penitence to name our sins to another, a man like 
ourselves, ilost of us do not realize very keenly 
the presence of God, and to tell our story to one who 
is His delegate fosters a holy shame and contrition. 
For many it seems the only way of honor (since we 
have sinned against an Incarnate Saviour who was 
manifested as man) to make before man a formal 
acknowledgment and confession. Some of us, too, 
would never know our sins, if we were not thus forced 
to go over them in detail. Others, and that from 
no weakness or indecision of character, need the aid 
of counsel and advice from a godly and experienced 



CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 181 

minister^ and though ^"^direction'^ is no necessary part 
of penance they cannot get this without telling him 
their sins. Some^ without any morbidness^ long for 
the personal assurance of forgiveness^ ^^Son, daugh- 
ter^ thy sins be forgiven thee; go in peace.^^ Yet 
others have felt that the knowledge that they must 
from time to time make particular and detailed con- 
fession of their sins acts as a restraining influence 
and helps them to conquer such sins in recurring 
temptations; they ought not to need such restraint^ 
they are quite aware^, and yet as a matter of fact they 
do need it and are helped by it. 

For these^ or for some one of many other reasons, 
one who is seriously and anxiously trying to gain 
peace with God may desire special help other than 
that of the larger and more general assurance of for- 
giveness in Christ, and at least at some time in his 
life, or at some important turning points, may need 
the help of private confession and absolution. As 
to the danger of scandal from the practice, that ob- 
jection is now so thoroughly exploded that it need 
hardly be mentioned. The time has gone by when 
a mere word about confession was enough to drive 
people crazy who saw no harm in a secluded tete-a- 
tete interview between the pastor and a member of 
his flock. The truth is, that if intercourse of this 
kind is to be allowed it is much safer in this way 
than in any other^ as being more open as well as 
surrounded with the solemnities of religion. 

It may be asked whether confession is really a 
teaching of the Anglican Church. In that case we 



182 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



have only to point to our formnlaries to prove the 
fact. In the form of Ordination of Priests in the 
Prayer Book we find words that express plainly the 
belief that thongh God alone forgives sin^ He uses 
human instruments in doing so. ^^Eeceive the 
Holy Ghost/'" the Bishop says as he lays his hands on 
the candidate^ '^^for the office and work of a priest in 
the Church of God^ now committed unto thee by the 
imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost for- 
give^ they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost 
retain^ they are retained.'^ If a communicant can- 
not quiet his own conscience and is held back from 
the altar^ this advice is given in the American book : 
^^Let him come to me or to some other Minister of 
God^s Word^ and open his grief^ that he may receive 
such godly counsel and advice as may tend to the 
quieting of his conscience and the removal of all 
scruple and doubtfulness^^; or^ as the English book 
puts it^ he is to go to his parish priest^, ^^or to some 
other discreet and learned Minister of God's 
Word, and open his grief^ that by the Ministry of 
God's Holy Word he may receive the benefit of abso- 
lution^ together with ghostly counsel and advice, to 
the quieting of his conscience and avoiding of all 
scruple and doubtfulness.'* In our Prayer Book, in 
the Office for the Visitation of Prisoners, the priest 
is directed to exhort the prisoner ^^to a particular 
confession of the sin for which he is condemned/'' and 
when confession has been made ^'to declare to him 
the pardoning mercy of God in the form which is 
used in the Communion Service^^; while in the Eng- 



(confession and absolution. 183 



lish Office for the Visitation of the Sick, the priest 
is told to move the sick person to ^'^make a special 
confession of his sins^^ and is then directed to absolve 
him in these words: ^^^Onr Lord Jesus Christ, who 
hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners 
who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great 
mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by His 
authority committed to me I absolve thee from all 
thy sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.'' 

There is, however, a difference between this way 
of teaching confession and the Eoman Catholic 
method. The Romanists make private confession to 
a priest compulsory; it is a necessary step to the re- 
ception of Holy Communion. With us, on the con- 
trary, however much individual priests may urge 
such confession, and assert its advantage in the spir- 
itual life, the going or not going is left to each indi- 
vidual soul. The matter is to be one of personal 
choice and desire. The expediency of confession is 
shown both in the Prayer Book and in the authorized 
homilies, and provision for it is made in our form- 
ularies, but each individual is to be the sole judge 
of his own needs. This freedom is well set forth in 
the ^^Order for Communion'' published by authority 
in the English Church in 1548, where it is urged 
that ^^such as shall be satisfied with a general con- 
fession be not offended with them that do use, to 
their further satisfying, the auricular and secret con- 
fession to the priest; nor those also which think 
needful and convenient, for the quietness of their 



184 THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



own consciences^ jDarticnlarly to open their sins to 
the priest; to be offended with them that are satis- 
fied with their humble confession to God^ and the 
general confession to the Church. But in all things 
to follow and keep the rule of charity; and every 
man to be satisfied with his own conscience^ nor judg- 
ing other men's minds or consciences/'^ 

If we are ill^ we do not go to a medical lecture 
and then endeavor^ on the information received^ to 
diagnose and treat our own case ; we visit a physician^ 
tell him our symptoms, and have him prescribe for 
us. If we are spiritually sick, then^ why should we 
not see the advantage of consulting our pastor and 
seeking his personal counsel^ instead of trusting only 
to the help of sermons, which at best are "^^medical 
lectures'^ on the soul's sickness and are necessarily 
general in their character? We cry out^ perhaps, 
that the shame of it is too great. ^'How can I tell 
to another all the story of my past and bear to face 
him again when we meet ? If I go to my pastor and 
tell him all my shame, how can I ever look into his 
eyes again^ knowing that he remembers all the evil 
Yes — ^but is he not a sinner^ too ? Does not his heart 
recall with shame his own offences? Does he not 
remember how much worse have been his falls ? And 
what tender ties must those be which bind together 
priest and people thus helping each other to find the 
help of God I ^'Tor your shame ye shall have double^ 
and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion.^^ 

True it is that God's pardon comes to me, if I 
am penitent, though there be no word of absolution 



CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 185 



from priestly lips. Yet if I feel the shame of sin, 
shall I not humble myself to the greatest possible de- 
gree? Then^ when I have done this, God gives me 
by the faltering lips of His priest not only pardon 
for all that is past, but grace and strength to guard 
me in the future. Do I know the sting of sin? 
Have I ever really faced it ? And if so, have I known 
the full peace of sin forgiven? If not, shall I hes- 
itate at any means by which I may obtain it ? 



XXIII. 



THE CHEISTIA^^- PRIESTHOOD. 

THE question will often be asked of us^ Why do 
yon speak of yonr ministers as priests? Were 
not all the Old Testament sacrifices fulfilled in 
Christ? Have we not all access to the throne of 
grace through His blood? What need of priests to 
stand between God and the soul ? And the word has 
fallen into such bad odor, too ! It arouses prejudice 
and has a hateful sound to so many ears. It suggests 
selfishness and cunning, hypocrisy and lies — all that 
is summed up under the popular denunciation of 
^^priestcraft.'^ Yet, there is the name in our Prayer 
Book; there it is in the Bible applied to our Lord 
and His work. ^^I will raise Me up a faithful priest.^^ 
^^Thou art a priest forever.^^ How shall we redeem 
the word from these false conceptions, and show that 
the dignity and beauty with which Jesus Christ 
ennobled it are carried over into the work of His ser- 
vants in the ministry of His Church ? 

What do we mean by a priest? In the common 
conception of the word^ he is one who offers a sacri- 



THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD. 187 



fice. We may include in it also a service man-ward. 
A priest is one who makes an offering to God and dis- 
penses God^s gifts to men. 

Firsts then^ we must ask what is the fundamental 
idea of sacrifice. In its essence^ sacrifice is the dedi- 
cation of the will to Almighty God. The ideal of 
worship is that over the whole earth men shall stand 
before God in adoration^ with words like these on 
their lips : "Here am I ; use me. All that I am and 
all that I have I give to Thy service. Thou hast 
made me for Thyself; I dedicate my life to Thee, 
therefore, I offer Thee myself, my soul and body, in 
love and gratitude, to do Thy will.^^ This is true 
sacrifice, and all outward sacrifices are but symbols 
of this inner reality. 

Man has sinned, however, and has never been 
able to offer this perfect oblation. Yet, because he 
has sinned, he feels the greater need of sacrifice, not 
only in love and grateful service but in propitiation 
for the failures of the past. So there is nothing in 
the world more pathetic than the history of sacrificial 
worship : men presenting their gifts to God, seeking 
for some adequate offering with which to make their 
peace with Him and so take up their right position 
before Him once more. We have seen something of 
what that sacrificial worship was, and how it kept 
alive the sense of sin and preserved amid many dis- 
tortions and crude exaggerations the perfect ideal of 
sacrifice; it was a constant reminder that something 
more was needed before God could find satisfaction 
in His creation. In some way the life of man must 



188 THE RELIGION OF THE INCAENATION. 



be given to God: nothing less than this could sufl&ce 
to make God and man at one again. 

ISTever^ then^ had a true sacrifice been offered the 
Father until Jesns Christ the perfect Man^ as the 
head and representative of the race^ offered Himself 
to God. Xever till then conld the Father forgive 
the sins of men without compromising His holiness 
and without the danger of serious moral misunder- 
standing. God must have presented before Him one 
perfect human life^ an offering of absolute obedience 
to His holy will. This offering was made by our 
Lord Christ — not simply by His deaths but in His 
life ; the sacrifice of the cross was the culmination of 
a life of sacrifice. ^^I came to do Thy will.*^ And 
so from the moment of His birth our Lord's every 
movement was in loving submission to the Father. 
God could now look on earth and find one human will 
perfectly subordinated to His own^ one life lived in 
complete obedience^ one soul bearing patiently every 
trial and temptation^ one heart absolutely loyal what- 
ever the end might be; tlirough misunderstanding 
and misrepresentation, violence and hatred^ cruel in- 
justice and oppression, and at length even in death, 
this Man never swerved a hair's breadth from the 
divine ideal for humanity. And now, when all was 
over and mankind in Christ had at last proved itself 
pleasing in God's sight, the way of salvation could 
be opened for all. 

And not only must the sacrifice be prepared; it 
must be offered and pleaded as a part of the same 
great act. Here we are carried beyond our depth into 



THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD. 189 



a realm of mystery where it is difficult to find a sure 
foothold; but the words of Scripture make us con- 
fident of the great fact that the offering begun by our 
Lord on earth is continued in heaven^ and that there 
His very presence is ever pleading the merits of His 
perfect oblation; He lifts it up on high; His life, 
His entire dedication of Himself to God, His obedi- 
ence unto death, is ever present before the Father as 
the ground of our forgiveness and restoration to the 
divine favor. 

Our Lord is a priest, then, our great High Priest, 
because He offers a true sacrifice. 

He is a priest also, because He dispenses God^s 
gifts to men. In a supreme way Jesus Christ does 
this. He brings us pardon, grace, and blessing from 
above; He ordains means by which divine strength 
is given to men ; in Him ^^dwelleth all the fulness of 
the Godhead bodily,^^ and He bestows of that fulness 
to men, so that through Him the very life of God is 
brought to them. He ministers to them also in His 
life of service; this is a part of His priestly work, 
by which the love and mercy and goodness of God 
are made real to men; service such as His is in its 
essence priestly, because such service is sacrificial, 
the constant giving out of self, the spending of self, 
the pouring out of His vital strength for others in 
such fashion that many times '^'^virtue'^ must have 
"gone out of Him.^^ 

ISTow the Church represents Christ on earth; 
indeed, so real is its inner union with Him that we 
may say it is Christ on earth. It is His Body, "the 



190 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



fulness of Him that fiUeth all in all/' And there- 
fore^ if Christ is a priest His Church is also priestly 
in character. ^'Ye are a chosen generation, a royal 
priesthood/** are words used of the Church. ^^He 
hath made us [the members of His Church] kings 
and priests unto God." We are speaking now of the 
whole body of Christian people. We are all priests, 
because we are members of a priestly body, the 
Church. 

In what does this priestly character of the Church 
consist? First of all, she is the means by which 
our Lord dispenses His spiritual gifts to men; the 
Church is a household of grace, a body through whose 
ordinances we are brought into union with the source 
of all spiritual strength. Again, the Church has 
a priesthood of service ; in works of charity and 
mercy, in those good works the like of which was 
never known till the Church set them forth, however 
imperfectly, as the embodiment of the mind of the 
Master, in the thousand and one ways in which the 
spirit of Christ is manifested, she holds up His life 
before men, so that the remembrance of it never dies 
out of the earth. 

And then, because her members are sinful and 
weak and imperfect, and so her self-dedication can 
never be absolutely realized, she pleads the merits of 
the atoning sacrifice of Christ, she shelters herself 
behind it as she lifts it up to God in the constant 
offering of the sacrament which He instituted in the 
night in which He was betrayed. We have seen how 
in this He places in her hands that very life which 



THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD. 191 



He offers in heaven^ so that she too offers and pleads 
it before God. 

Look, Father, look on His anointed face, 
And only look on us as found in Him; 

Look not on our misusings of Thy grace, 

Our prayer so languid and our faith so dim ; 

For lo ! between our sins and their reward, 

We set the Passion of Thy Son our Lord. 

If we realize that Jesns Christ is even now en- 
gaged in His priestly work^ that it is an essential 
element in His sacrifice that His blood shall not only 
be shed but shall be perpetually offered^ we shall 
see that when the Church engages in that divine ser- 
vice wherein she makes the same offering her work 
is a priestly work. 

If the Churchy then, is priestly in character her 
ministers mnst be priests. The whole nation of Is- 
rael was separated to God to be a ^^kingdom of 
priests/^ yet certain of their number, members of 
the tribe of Levi, were called out and set apart for a 
peculiar ministerial priesthood; they acted for their 
brethren in making offerings to God, they acted for 
God in conveying blessings to His people. ISTot that 
they were in any sense mediators between God and 
men; rather, God was using them as instruments 
through whom He gave gifts to their brethren. 

What is true of Israel is true also of the Christian 
dispensation. All of Christ's people are ^^a chosen 
generation, a royal priesthood,'^ yet certain of them 
are called to a special and peculiar service, a minis- 
terial priesthood. In the pleading of His great sac- 



192 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATIOK 



rifice they act for their brethren by His appointment ; 
their priesthood is not something which simply in- 
heres in their ^'order/*' it is the expression of the 
priesthood of the whole body. In the bestowal of 
grace^ too^ their ministry is priestly: they act for 
God^ they bless in His name^ they proclaim with 
authority His pardon^ they act for Him in the be- 
stowal of baptismal regeneration. He uses them in 
feeding His people with Eucharistic food. It is no 
more remarkable that our spiritual blessings should 
thus come to iis through others than that our natural 
blessings should be given through parents or friends. 
The life comes no less from God because it comes 
through the instrumentality of human parentage; 
the food is no less given by Him because others have 
their part in providing for the growing child; the 
kindly care and education are no less a blessing from 
above because kinsfolk and teachers have been used in 
imparting them — and so the baptismal birth^ the 
sevenfold gift of the Spirit, the grace of absolution^ 
the strengthening food of the Eucharist^ come from 
God^ though God chooses to use human agents in 
bestowing them. Perhaps He confers both gifts — 
the physical and the spiritual — through these chan- 
nels, that so the whole race may be bound together in 
love; and thus we shall find the explanation of the 
ministerial priesthood in the thought of the close 
union of Christ's people through the bond that unites 
them to one another by reason of their union with 
Him. 

Xow for the iasis of this ministerial priesthood: 



THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD. 193 



Let us go back to the conception of the Church as 
the Body of Christ. In this Body we are set as 
members. God hath appointed the members every 
one of them in the Body as it hath pleased Him. In 
this Body we live together in the Spirit^ with diversi- 
ties of gifts and differences of administrations — just 
as in the natural body the different members have 
each their separate labor^ the head^ the hand, the 
foot, the ear, the eye, each performing its own work 
to the upbuilding of the whole body. 

Bearing in mind this thought of the Church as 
the Body of Christ and ourselves as members of the 
Body, we see the place of the Christian priesthood, 
as an organ of the Body to perform one of its func- 
tions. The ministerial Priesthood is, so to speak, 
the arm of the Church. God would not have the 
Churches work carried on at haphazard; there is a 
fixed and carefully arranged organization, with mem- 
bers set apart for each particular work; the various 
functions of the Church are not left to the chance 
administration of self-chosen agents, there is a cer- 
tain and definite rule accordino; to which some of 
the members of the Body are appointed to offer the 
Churches sacrifice and to dispense her gifts of grace as 
the mouthpiece and representative of the whole mem- 
bership. The clergy are members of the Church in 
the same sense in which the laity are members; 
their priesthood and ministry are representative, and 
they are in no sense mediators between God and men. 

May we not carry the conception of Christ^ s 
priesthood into the pastoral work and Christian ser- 



194 THE EELIGION OE THE INCARNATION. 



vice of the Cliurch and her ministers? Too often 
^ve base our idea of priesthood only in the doing of 
something. Priesthood goes deeper than that; at 
heart it must include the heing something. Our 
Lord's priesthood was more fundamental than that of 
the Levitical ministry; it was in His being and na- 
ture. He was a priest not only because of what He 
did^ but because of what He was. So it does seem that 
the priesthood of the Churchy and that of her minis- 
try^ must be a priesthood of sacrifice and service^ the 
giving of life as a ransom for many^ the utter dedi- 
cation of self for the good of others. We may be 
quite sure that as this priesthood of service is more 
widely recognized in us by the worlds the priesthood 
of offering will also be readily accepted. Men rebel 
at the one^ because it seems mechanical when dis- 
severed from the other. 

A firm grasp on the principle of the priesthood 
set forth in this paper will lead us to honor God^s 
ministry with greater reverence than do those who 
think of the clergy simply as teachers and preachers ; 
none the less will it lead us to honor the place of lay- 
men in the Church. Too often we regard lay mem- 
bership as a negative thing; laymen are simply all 
those who are not priests. Our present way of look- 
ing at the subject will teach us that laymen have a 
positive office^ and that they can do a work in the 
Church of God as necessary as that of the clergy. 
We are not to shift upon the shoulders of the minis- 
ter all responsibility for the work of the parish^ and 
leave him to labor alone for the salvation of souls^ 



THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD. 195 



supposing that the only duty of laymen is to furnish 
the money to support the offices of religion. The 
true layman feels that he has a service to perform 
which is just as real as that of the priest at the altar. 
It is one of the glories of the American Church that 
her system of government emphasizes this positive 
side of lay ministry. God hasten the day when the 
laity may fully appreciate their privilege^ in worship, 
in service, in labor for the advancement of the king- 
dom, in the oversight of the Churches temporalities ! 
St. Paul magnified his office ; the clergy of to-day, if 
they understand their priestly responsibility, will 
magnify theirs ; may the laity also, without detract- 
ing from the ministerial priesthood, magnify their 
place, too, as co-workers with their pastors in the 
household of God. 



XXIV. 



THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION". 

GOD is a God of order. In nature He leaves 
nothing to chance^ He works by law. We 
have seen that in the Church also there is a fixed 
and definite rule by which certain functions of the 
Body are assigned to the ministerial priesthood. 

This thought of the orderliness of God^s working 
in the Church will explain the law of succession in the 
ministry. When it was stated that the clergy of the 
Church have a representative priesthood, it was not 
meant that their powers were derived from the Body ; 
the authority comes from God, and is exercised only 
by His appointment. While, of course, the whole 
body of the faithful should have something to say 
about the selection and appointment of the clergy 
who act for them, the authority by which they act 
and the powers they exercise must come from God. 
He only can commission them; the authority could 
not come from the members of the Body, because no 
one can confer a power which is greater than he him- 
self possesses. 



THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 197 



It would appear from the Bible that this commis- 
sion from God implies not merely that the minister 
should believe that he has received a divine call, but 
that he should be set apart and ordained for his work 
in a divinely appointed way. This is necessary in 
order that those to whom he ministers, as well as he 
himself, may have the assurance of his divine com- 
mission. An inner call might be enough for him; 
others, however, can know nothing about this, and 
so in addition to this call there must be the regularity 
of appointment as pledging the validity of his min- 
istrations. So in the Jewish Church God set apart 
a certain tribe for the service of the tabernacle, and 
the presumption of others who attempted to take 
the same power to themselves was repeatedly pun- 
ished. 

What, then, is the regular and valid form of 
appointment to the priesthood in the Christian 
Church? The answer lies in the statement of what 
we call the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession. 

We believe that Jesus Christ came on earth to 
found a Church. We believe that His Apostles were 
its first ministers. They, under instructions from 
Him, organized its government. He had promised 
to be with them always, and so they ordained others 
as their successors, in whom this promise was to be 
fulfilled. It is perfectly plain that at first only those 
who had teen ordained by the Apostles could take 
the office of the ministry. By and bye we see the 
Apostles consecrating others, to whom is given this 
power of ordination, so that during the life time of 



198 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



the Apostles we find three orders of the ministry 
established: (1) The lowest order^ who were called 
Deacons^ and were given authority to preach and 
baptize; (2) another order^ who were called Pres- 
byters and who not only performed the duties of the 
minor office^ but were in charge of congregations and 
celebrated the Holy Eucharist; (3) a third order 
called Apostles^ who^ besides doing all that has been 
enumerated^ had the oversight of the churches and 
ordained and consecrated to the ministry. Such 
were Timothy^ Titus^ and others. As yet the name 
^^Bishop^^ is given indiscriminately either to those 
of the Apostlic order or to the Presbyters ; gradually^ 
however^ out of honor to the original Twelve^ the 
name Apostle was dropped as the designation of the 
highest order^ and the title Bishop was reserved for 
them alone and was no longer applied to the second 
order. 

These Bishops (or Apostles) then have conse- 
crated others^ and they in turn still others^ so that the 
line has come down to the present day; the succes- 
sion from the Apostles has never failed^ and the three 
orders have never ceased. The three great branches 
of the Church Catholic, the Eastern, the Eoman, and 
the Anglican (which includes the American Episco- 
pal Church), have this apostolic ministry; the 
Protestant Churches have dispensed with it. Most 
of them say that it is unnecessary; some, like the 
Presbyterians and the Lutherans, claim to have a 
''presbyterial succession,'' that is, a succession 



THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 199 



throngh Presbyters, the second order of the min- 
istry. 

Here the well-instructed Churchman must be 
prepared to meet attacks from three different direc- 
tions. 

- (1) First, he must answer those who deny that 
the Anglican, or the Episcopal, Church has this suc- 
cession. Eoman Catholics will sneer at the claim 
and will assert that to them alone is due the allegi- 
ance of English-speaking Christians, as having a 
valid ministry. What we claim, and what history 
proves, is that at the Eeformation the English 
Church preserved absolutely her connection with the 
past. It is not necessary to go into the case in de- 
tail here, because so many books and pamphlets on 
the subject have been published that no one need be 
at a loss for the facts.*^ There is not the slightest 
doubt that the Anglican Church traces her life back 
to the Apostles. With her the Eeformation was a 
^^ref orm within the Church," and differed radically 
from the secession and revolt on the Continent. 
When the storm was over only 177 out of the 9,400 
clergy refused to conform to the new order; one of 
the popes offered to accept the Prayer Book with all 
its changes, if the queen [Elizabeth] would acknowl- 
edge his supremacy, and, in short, there is abundant 
evidence of the care with which the old ministry was 
continued through Parker and his contemporaries 

See, for example, the latest edition of Little's standard 
work, "Reasons for Being a Churchman," or chapters in Bishop 
Grafton's book, "Christian and Catholic." 



200 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



and successors;, and of the entire satisfactoriness of 
the form of consecration by which they were or- 
dained. In England^ after the Eeformation^ the 
Church remained the same Catholic and Apostolic 
body she had always been; she retained the Bishops 
and the priesthood^ the ancient creeds and the Cath- 
olic faith and sacraments. She rejected the claim 
of the Bishop of Eome to be the head of the Churchy 
the source of jurisdiction and the arbiter of doctrine; 
she removed abuses^ guarded against popular errors^ 
returned to the primitive custom of administering 
the Holy Communion in both kinds^ and restored the 
service to the people by saying it in a language they 
could understand;, but she made no change which in- 
volved a loss of her Catholic heritage. "The separa- 
tion was from Eome as a court claiming jurisdiction 
over England, not from Eome in any point of faith 
or order that had been ruled upon by the Church 
Universal.^^ 

(2) AgaiU;, the Churchman must meet the Pres- 
byterian claim to an Apostolic Succession through 
the second order of the ministry. The assertion that 
Presbyters had the power of ordination rests upon 
the weakest possible foundation — a few obscure pas- 
sages in the fathers, notably one of St. Jerome, and 
some instances of supposed Presbyterian ordination 
as exceptions to an admitted general rule^ such as 
(for example) the custom of Alexandria. Every 
one of these caseS;, however, may be explained quite 
as naturally on the Episcopal theory as on the Presby- 
terian; and over against them is an overwhelming 



THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 201 

preponderance of testimony as to the world-wide 
acceptance of the Episcopate as the ordaining body. 
As soon as the Church emerges out of the snb-apos- 
tolic age^ we find the Episcopate everywhere estab- 
lished^ with Episcopal ordination the universal rule. 
Is it not the height of absurdity^ if Episcopacy is 
found without an exception by the middle of the 
second century^ to suppose that it supplanted a 
Presbyterianism of the preceding period? Imagine 
the change being made in that short time from one 
form of government to another^ and yet history prov- 
ing absolutely silent as to any protest, in any Church, 
from any Presbyter whose rights had been so ruth- 
lessly trampled upon! Scripture and history alike 
must have curious interpretations read into them 
to show the faintest evidence that any but a Bishop 
or Apostle ever had authority to ordain in the Church 
of God. 

(3) Finally, we shall be met by an appeal to 
sentiment from those who do not believe in any way 
in the Apostolic Succession. ^^Your doctrine/^ they 
say, ^^simply unchurches all other Christian bodies 
and invalidates their ministry. Deliver me from 
any theory which says that nobody outside the Church 
can be saved, which then confines the Church within 
the limits of one or two communions, and which will 
not recognize the work of the godly ministers of other 
denominations, because, forsooth, they have been or- 
dained by a slightly different method than that of 
your own body.^^ 



202 THE EELICxIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



Let ns take up these charges, one by one. The 
general answer to them all is. Thev are not true : 

It is not true, for example^ that we think no one 
can be saved outside the Church. "We do believe 
that God has promised salvation through our Lord 
Christ : we do believe that Christ left the Church to 
bring this salvation to men. and therefore vre plead 
with men to listen to our message. In other words^ 
we believe that the Church is the normal and cov- 
enanted way of salvation. But it is far from our 
thought to tie God down to this one method of 
bringing men to Him. TVe believe that He has 
promised life to those who accept it in this way; 
but we do not think for a moment that He may not 
have other ways of accomplishing the same work 
for those who have had no fair chance to accept the 
covenanted means of grace. Is that illiberal ? You 
would hardly consider it uncharitable, if being lost 
in a dense forest and finding a direct way out. you 
called to all your companions to follow even though 
there niiglii be another way of exit, and they might, 
it left to themselves, find it. 

Xor is it true that we confine the Church to our 
own communion. It has been explained in a pre- 
vious chapter that the organization of the Catholic 
Church is that which is administered by Bishops 
who are charged with our Lord's commission; but 
its memlership includes all baptized persons, whether 
they be Greeks. Eoman. Anglicans, or Protestants. 
Some may have failed to carry out their union with 
Christ to its full completeness, but they are mem- 



THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 203 



bers of His Body nevertheless^ and all by right of 
their Baptism are recipients of His grace. Nobody 
denies that Christ has faithful, loving servants in 
every denomination, nor does anyone deny that what 
they are and what they do is the result of the grace 
they receive from Him. 

Again, it is not true that we deny the eflficacy of 
other ministries. After all, the only point involved 
here is the validity of the priesthood, not the min- 
istry of teaching and preaching. When the clergy 
of other bodies claim for themselves that they are 
called as preachers of the Word, we willingly admit 
it, gladly acknowledging the great work they have 
done for Christ, freely accepting the evidence of 
their call to this work, and rejoicing in every effort 
of theirs to bring souls to God. They do not usually 
claim any priestly function, and most of them would 
be indignant if it were claimed for them. 

The question of validity does arise, however, in 
connection with the priesthood and the administra- 
tion of the sacraments. What do we mean, then, by 
a ^Valid^^ ministry and ^Valid^^ sacraments ? Simply 
a ministry and sacraments that are secure and certain 
because ratified by God. The point with regard to 
any ministry outside that which history shows to be 
apostolic is that we cannot be certain about it. When 
asked to acknowledge other orders than those con- 
ferred under the apostolic rule, we do not say that 
such orders are worthless, we simply say that their 
validity is questionable and that to accept them would 
be to give up a certainty for an uncertainty. The 



204 THE RELIGION OF THE IXCARNATIOK 



ministry which we have is clearly according to the 
mind of Christ; other ministries may or may not be 
so^ we cannot tell; surely^ therefore^ we must guard 
what we have because we believe it to be divine^ 
meanwhile leaving others to God^ who knoweth all 
things. 

This position is shown by the fact that the An- 
glican Church has never formally pronounced the 
sacraments or orders of others invalid. She simply 
declares that ^^it is evident to all men^ diligently 
reading Holy Scripture and the ancient authors^ that 
from the Apostles* time there have been these orders 
of ministers in Christ's Churchy Bishops^ Priests^ 
and Deacons/'" and she preserves the apostolic method 
by providing that none but those having episcopal 
ordination shall minister at her altars; but she no- 
where requires the rejection of speculative opinions 
about the validity of any other orders than these, 
in the stress of later difficulties. 

We do not say, then, that a non-episcopal ordina- 
tion is valueless and that the sacraments celebrated 
under it do not convey grace; we know that God 
can give grace freely, and we cannot doubt that He 
has given it where the sacraments are not duly ad- 
ministered, but believing our own ministry to be that 
which is in accord with the will of God, we feel that 
we have no right to tamper with it. In holding, 
therefore, to this form of ecclesiastical government 
we are not harshly condemning others; it is simply 
a question of preserving on our part what we believe 
to be the institution of Christ. ^^We do not pre- 



THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSIOJST. 205 



sume/^ said the late Bishop Lightfoot^ ^^to pass any 
judgment on Christian communities differently or- 
ganized than ourselves. Our plain duty is to guard 
faithfully what has been committed to us^ and leave 
others to Him who judgeth righteously/^ 



XXV. 



COOTIEIIATIOX AXD OTHER SACEAMENTS. 

COXFIEMATIOX has sometimes been called 
the ordination of the laity. Everyone will 
readily acknowledge that the lajing on of hands 
brings some special grace to those who have been 
called to the clerical life and would serve God in the 
ministry of the Church. However one may empha- 
size the need of an inward call, the subsequent ordina- 
tion must be regarded by most devout people as a 
solemn and impressive ceremony^ a means of convey- 
ing grace for a high callings and not simply a formal 
setting apart for service. Almost anyone who has 
any conception of sacramental grace in Baptism or 
Holy Communion will believe at least this much 
about Ordination. 

iSTow what Ordination is to the clergyman^, Con- 
firmation is to the layman. We have seen that there 
is a ministry of the laity as well as of the clergy. 
Let us ask^ now^ what our idea of the ministerial 
office is. We Churchmen think of it as a priesthood 
— and what has been said will show that we need 



CONFIRMATION AND OTHER SACRAMENTS. 207 



not be afraid of the word — and our conception of the 
office is that of one who acts toward God for men and 
toward men for God. Yet, however highly we es- 
teem this priestly office, we have seen that back of it 
is the general priesthood of the whole body of the 
faithful. In the Eucharist, for example, the priest 
pleads the sacrifice of Christ as he lifts up the sacred 
elements ; but he does so as the agent and representa- 
tive of the Church : the Eucharist is a corporate ser- 
vice, and what is done is done in the name of the 
body — toe offer, we present; so that here the min- 
isterial priesthood is the expression of the general 
priesthood. 

Or one may think of the ministry rather as a 
spiritual leadership, the clergyman being the head 
of the congregation and their mouthpiece in offering 
the prayers of the Church: but here, again, there is 
a lay ministry of leadership, as (to take an instance) 
in the family priesthood, where in the common 
prayers, in the grace at meals, and in the exercise of 
all that is involved in the religious life of the home, 
the father holds powers which descend to him from 
patriarchal times, gaining new sanction and author- 
ity in our risen life in Christ. 

Or, if we think of the ministry as a Christian 
service and of those who are called to holy orders as 
being dedicated to a life of labor for their fellow- 
men, here most all there is a lay ministry, the min- 
istry of individual service for God, such service as 
works and prays for the spread of Christ's Kingdom 
and constantly ministers to the uplifting of those 



208 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



one meets in the frequent intercourse of tlie ordinary, 
every-day life. This conception of what has been 
called the priesthood of the laity, emphasizes, too, 
the thought that all of life is sacred, so that for the 
Christian it may be said that the line between things 
secular and things religious is abolished. Every 
part of home and business and social life is to be 
penetrated with religion, and a man^s ordinary occu- 
pation is to become therefore his vocation. There 
was a time when one^s trade or profession or business 
was spoken of as one^s ^^calling,^^ and it would be well 
to get the name back as a reminder that the man in 
the pew is as truly a minister of God, though not in 
the same office, as the priest at the altar. 

It is but a natural step from this thought of the 
sacredness of life to that of a corresponding grace 
that shall fit us for its duties. So we find in the 
special gift of Confirmation a full and free outpour- 
ing of the Holy Ghost to enable us to live a life of 
Christian service. The Church leads her own child- 
ren to Confirmation and asks others who come into 
her fold to enter in this way, because the ordinance 
is one of such deep and solemn meaning. It is not 
a bare form or ceremony, nor is it merely an occasion 
for the public reiteration and assumption of bap- 
tismal vows. It is not, in fact, anji:hing that we do, 
so much as it it is something that God does — He 
strengthens. He confirms. He bestows the sevenfold 
gift of the Spirit for the labor of life. It is the 
bestowal of the fulness of the Holy Ghost, to fit men 
for a holy calling, and we do not exaggerate its im- 



CONFIRMATION AND OTHEK SACRAMENTS. 209 



portance^ therefore, when we go so far as to say that 
it is the ordination of the laity. Just as the clergyman 
must be consecrated and set apart and by the laying 
on of hands receive grace for his work, so the layman 
must be endowed for his. To live in the world and 
yet not be of it; in the midst of so many and great 
dangers and temptations to hold always for the truth ; 
in business, in the office, in the shop, or the house- 
hold, to show forth God^s glory ; so to act that others 
may be won by our godly conduct — all this, assuredly, 
calls for manifold gifts of grace. We are not sur- 
prised, therefore, at the Churches belief in the reality 
and power of the Confirmation gift; we should 
rather be astonished to hear that it could be anything 
less than is claimed for it. Men need the guidance 
of the Holy Spirit in the multiplied and perplexing 
duties of life, and here we have the pledge that they 
receive it. 

'Not that we confine the presence of the Spirit to 
this or to any ordinance. The work of the blessed 
Breath of God is not limited to anything less than 
all humanity, in its beneficent operation. But ^^here 
His working is sweetest and strongest and largest; 
here it is promised working, pledged working, cove- 
nanted working.^^ 

So we find in Holy Scripture that the laying on 
of hands for the laity is as well established as the 
ordination of the clergy. St. Paul at Ephesus (Acts 
xix. 4-6) baptizes his converts and then lays his 
hands upon them, and through the laying on of the 
Apostle^s hands the Holy Ghost comes on them. At 



210 THE RELIGION OF THE INCAENATION. 



Samaria^ Philip the deacon (Acts viii. 14-17) bap' 
tizes many converts^ and then two of the Apostles^ St. 
Peter and St. J ohn^ come down from Jerusalem;, pray 
for them^ and lay their hands npon them, and they 
receive the Holy Ghost. It is no wonder that this 
laying on of hands is reckoned (Hebrews vi. 2) as 
one of the '^'^first principles of the doctrine of Christ/^ 
one of the '^^fonndations^^ of the Christian life. 

Perhaps it may not be amiss to add that this 
thought of Confirmation as the ordination of a lay- 
man for his work leads naturally to a larger concep- 
tion than most of us have of the sacramental system 
of the Church. The sacramental idea is not that of 
grace in Baptism or Holy Communion only, but of 
grace meeting us at every turn, hallowing all our 
occupations and shedding a divine light on every 
walk of -life: grace that gives spiritual power to the 
candidate who kneels before the Bishop, the successor 
of the Apostles, helping him to serve God amid the 
eager activities of a business or professional career; 
grace to bless the newly married couple at the altar, 
enabling them to live together in what is thus made 
an holy estate of matrimony; grace to bring physical 
and spiritual healing to the sick and feeble and to 
sanctify to their use the physician^s remedies ; grace 
to add new spiritual vigor to the pardoned penitent 
making a fresh start in life; grace to confer char- 
acter on those who are particularly called to holy 
orders in the Church of God — and all these gifts just 
as real as the pardoning grace of Baptism or the 
strengthening grace of Holy Communion. 



CONFIRMATION AND OTHER SACRAMENTS. 211 



We do believe^ then^ that when once it is realized 
how sacred life is and how much we need divine 
strength to live it as sons of God;, the value of Con- 
firmation will be appreciated as conferring a special 
gift of the Holy Ghost^ and its appropriateness will 
be particularly evident when it is administered, as 
it is in the Western Church, at just that period when 
one is entering upon lifers work. It is sometimes 
asked why Confirmation should be insisted on for 
those who wish to unite with the Church from other 
Christian bodies. ^"^You do not ask them to be bap- 
tized again/^ it is urged; ^Vhy ask them to be con- 
firmed, if they have already made a profession of 
Christian faith If Confirmation were merely a 
profession of Christian faith or a public renewal of 
baptismal vows, it would not be thought necessary 
for one who had already openly confessed our Lord. 
We do not insist on Baptism, because that is some- 
thing that has already been done for the soul, and 
to repeat it would be sacrilege. But the laying on 
of hands is something that has not been done, and 
something, too, so full of meaning, that to leave it 
undone would be a distinct loss to the soul. 

If Confirmation were more often presented in 
this way to those who now regard it simply as a 
public confession of Christ, surely many more would 
be anxious to receive it. Unless it were this we could 
not ask one who had already confessed Him to do so 
again. To insist upon it would be to lay stress on 
a mere form. And Confirmation is not a mere form ; 
it is an apostolic ordinance instinct with life. 



XXVI. 



THE BIBLE AXD ITS IXSPIRATION". 

UE final anthority in matters of faith is the 



V«y inspired Word of God^ the Holy Scriptnres of 
the Old and isew Testaments. To these — not as an 
independent authority^ bnt as the record of the 
thought and belief of the Clmrch — we tnrn for light 
on the problems of life. Here, however, we are face 
to face with a fact which we must not attempt to 
belittle, that faith in the Bible has been tremendously 
weakened in the generation now passing. The claims 
of the newer criticism, the moral difficulties of the 
Old Testament, realized now as never before — ^these 
and other causes have upset the faith of many and 
led them to reject the Bible as a divine revelation. 

We must face the facts as they are, then, and 
endeavor, if possible, to find a solution of these diffi- 
culties. And this, perhaps, will be done best by 
trying to get a clear idea of just what the Bible is. 
To put this very simply : Holy Scripture is the record 
oi man's search for God, and of God's response to his 
seeking. 




THE BIBLE AND ITS INSPIRATION. 213 



Men, everywhere and always, have been trying to 
find God ; the history of the world religions is a record 
of their efforts to know Him. And the history of 
Israel is the story of a nation which, whatever its 
faults and failings, gave itself pre-eminently to this 
religions task. With other nations there is much in 
the way of secular progress, and mingled with this 
a spiritual development also; but with the Jews, the 
record of the nation is the record of a people who de- 
voted themselves almost exclusively to the struggle 
for spiritual growth. However we may account for 
it, Israel is a peculiar people ; its evolution is a spir- 
itual evolution; it seems to have a special work, and 
that work is the development of the religious con- 
sciousness. Others sought for God, feeling after 
Him, if haply they might find Him ; Israel was in a 
unique way devoted to the task. It has no history 
apart from its religious history, no literature except 
its religious writings; it seems to have but one pur- 
pose, to keep alive in the world the knowledge and 
remembrance of God. 

Now if we believe in God as a person, we believe 
that when men seek Him He will reveal Himself to 
them. When one human personality strives with all 
its might to know another, that other cannot remain 
indifferent; knowledge, friendship, intimacy, is the 
reward of those who seek it. So those who try to 
find God will learn that as they move toward Him 
He steps forth to meet them; when men strive dil- 
igently to attain a knowledge of Him, He unveils 
Himself and opens before them the treasures of His 



214 THE EELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



mind. In proportion as men have tried to under- 
stand His character^ He has responded to the effort, 
and their aspiration has had its answer in His stoop- 
ing to meet them and breathing into them His own 
Spirit. 

This will help ns to see what we are to understand 
by the inspiration of the Bible. It does not mean 
that the Book itself is a mechanically inspired writ- 
ing, but rather that men whose souls have breathed 
forth their longing for God have in turn had His 
life breathed into them. The men are inspired, 
rather than the Book. 

So while we find that other men, and therefore 
other books, are inspired, they are not guided by God 
as are the Scripture writers; the inspiration of the 
Bible is unique. Men in every nation and every 
time who have sought God, have found Him, and so 
have been breathed upon by Him. But as the Jew- 
ish nation gave itself peculiarly to this search for 
God, and as its prophets and spiritual leaders de- 
voted themselves with all their powers to this one 
task, so God made His reponse to their aspiration 
more generous and satisfying. So Biblical inspira- 
tion differs from all other inspiration, in degree and 
even in kind, because it is God^s answer to a search 
for Him such as can be found in no other nation 
and with no other individuals. The old fathers, for 
example, used to speak of an inspiration of the great 
thinkers of Greece, as a reflection of that Light that 
lighteth every man coming into the world. But 
how much larger and richer, how transcendently 



THE BIBLE AND ITS IJSTSPIRATIOlSr. 215 



deeper and fuller, how radically different, is the in- 
spiration that comes to the spiritual leaders of a 
people who were especially devoted to the search for 
God, who inherited all the past of a race and nation 
whose one idea was to find Him, and who but gave 
expression to the accumulating knowledge into the 
possession of which they had come. 

And again, with this conception of what the 
Bible is, we shall see the limitations of inspiration. 
The men who wrote the Scriptures were inspired for 
one special purpose : that they might tell about God. 
He revealed Himself to them ; He did not necessarily 
tell them more than other men knew about science, 
or history, or medicine, or a hundred other things; 
He simply revealed to them His own character. His 
nature. His mind. His purpose for men. The Bible, 
therefore, is inspired for one purpose — ^to show the 
truth about God, to give men a sure and certain rec- 
ord in matters of faith and morals. Mistakes in 
history, even errors in fact, ignorance of scientific 
truth — none of these, if they be present, will invali- 
date the claims of Scripture; for the Bible writers 
do not pretend to any infallibility on these points; 
they are simply inspired to give a right moral teach- 
ing and to point out a clear path of faith. Assum- 
ing, for example, that they accept the current theories 
of their time about the creation of the world, or that 
they place on record a well-known legend about a 
universal flood — we have no concern about the source 
of these stories. What interests us is that now for 
the first time God is related to these ancient narra- 



216 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



tives : He creates^ His Spirit broods npon the face of 
the waters; He enters into relations with men; their 
errors are sins against Him ; He rewards or punishes. 

And so it is with Bible History. We are not con- 
cerned so much with the accuracy of names and dates 
as with the fact that as nations rise and fall^ the 
Bible record of their life differs from all other his- 
tory in that it shows GocVs hand in all things. He 
stands behind the scenes, and whatever human causes 
may seem to bring about results^ they are shown to be 
but the instruments of His power. Secular his- 
torians would tell of the struggles of Eg}^t or Syria 
or Damascus or the kingdoms of the East^ and how 
Israel was affected by their varjung fortunes; the 
Bil)le historians show God behind all^ working out 
His purposes through human agencies. Secular 
writers would tell of the reign of Cyrus and its in- 
fluence on the history of Israel; the Bible writers 
show this, but show also how God ^^raised up Cyrus'^ 
to carry out His own divine plans. An ordinary his- 
torian would tell of human events that proceeded 
from certain causes and led to certain results; the 
inspired historian shows God as the moving power 
behind all causes. 

Xow such a view of inspiration will show us very 
clearly that there is an evolutionary progress in rev- 
elation. If the Bible is the record of man^s search 
for God, we shall expect it to show the steps that have 
marked the progress of that search. They do not 
come to know Him all at once, to perfection; rather, 



THE BIBLE AND ITS INSPIRATION. 



217 



they gain this knowledge piecemeal, little by little, 
till it is for all practical purposes complete. 

So there is an evolution in the idea of God. At 
first the thought of Him seems very anthropo- 
morphic; then He is regarded as hardly more than 
a tribal deity; then, in prophets and psalmists, He 
becomes the God of the whole earth; and at last in 
the Gospels and the Epistles, He is seen as Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit, devising means that all His 
banished ones may return. 

Or take, again, the morality of the Bible. At 
first, in some of the stories of the Book of Judges, it 
seems crude and imperfect. Even in the Psalms 
there are lapses into a spirit of vengefulness, with 
imprecations against the enemies of Israel and of 
Israelis God. These are not to be judged by them- 
selves, but rather as compared with surrounding 
heathenism. Only so do we get an adequate concep- 
tion of the immense distance that separated those 
who knew God from those who had not yet found 
Him. Yet, little by little, relatively imperfect ideas 
of God^s moral character drop away, until in the 
revelation of the ISTew Testament we see God in His 
infinite perfection, a God of beauty, of holiness, of 
tender mercy and compassion and love. There are 
great elements of truth in the old conception; for 
God is just as well as loving, stern as well as com- 
passionate, with a holiness that hates sin; so the Old 
Testament thought is allowed to remain as a witness 
to this side of His nature, as, indeed, it finds reitera- 
tion even in the thought of St. John or St. Paul, or 



218 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAENATION. 



in the words of our Lord Christ Himself^ though the 
predominant thought now is of the God whose love 
for sinners shines in the light of the Cross of Cal- 
vary. 

The moral difficulties of the Bible disappear when 
once we realize that there was this growth in the 
knowledge of God and in the appreciation of what 
His holiness involves. 'We are prepared to learn that 
the spirit of Elisha is forbidden to the sons of Zebe- 
dee. or that the imprecatory Psalms give place to the 
prayer of St. Stephen^ ^Tord^ lay not this sin to their 
charge.^^ 

So. while all parts of the Bible are of value, all 
are not of equal value. TTe reach the Holy of Holies 
as we gaze on the face of the Son of Man. But the 
distance that separates the Xew Testament from the 
Old is no greater than that which separated the writ- 
ers of the old dispensation, with all their absence of 
the full Christian faith^ from the ignorance and 
immorality, the idolatry and superstition of the sur- 
rounding peoples^ in the midst of which their light 
was as the brightness of the sun. 

And each new bit of knowledge comes only with 
man's striving to reach up to God. The problem of 
suffering and evil^ a puzzle to the writer of the Book 
of Job, who rests at length in the thought of God^s 
greatness and man's littleness and the impossibility 
of the one being comprehended by the other^ is solved 
for US; as well as it ever will be solved this side of the 
grave, in the life and atoning death of Jesus Christ. 
Or^ heredity and its blasting curse^ over which Ezekiel 



THE BIBLE AND ITS INSPIRATION. 219 



agonizes till he seems almost to reject the second 
commandment in his indignant denunciation of a 
wrong interpretation of it^ is solved by St. Paul^ who 
sees the whole truth and knows the remedy for the 
inherited sin. Or^ once more^ immortality and the 
resurrection^ guessed at by the prophets, held fast 
tremblingly by psalmists, is made certain in Christ. 
So, all through the centuries, men were seeking after 
God, finding Him little by little, adding here and 
there a bit to their knowledge, and at last as they 
look upon Christ, knowing Him to perfection. 

And it is because the Old Testament has led up 
so gradually and yet so surely to the splendors of the 
JvTew, that we postulate God^s inspiring guidance 
through the course of the whole work. ^^The fruitful 
soil from which sprang the Christ, the writings which 
on every page witness for truth and righteousness 
with passionate devotion, the institutions which pre- 
pared the way for the Christian Church, and which 
are associated with a unique moral and spiritual 
progress of humanity extending continuously over 
some forty centuries, these surely need no other argu- 
ment to shield them from the aspersion of being 
cradled in sheer invention and fraud/^^^ 

There is here a sort of concentration of revelation. 
God reveals Himself in many ways: in nature, for 
the heavens declare the glory of God^ and the firma- 
ment showeth His handiwork ; in man, made in God^s 
image, after His likeness ; in men especially who have 
learned spiritual truth, for there His Spirit illumines 

*5 Body : "The Permanent Value of Genesis." 



220 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATIOK^. 



and inspires ; and all this deepened and concentrated 
in the revelation of the Son^ who came as the bright- 
ness of the Father's glory and the express image^ the 
stamped copy^ of His Person. So^ whatever the diffi- 
culties of all that goes before^ they resolve themselves^ 
when viewed in the light of this splendid outcome of 
it; and we have at length in concrete expression the 
full knowledge of the Infinite. What Christ is^ God 
is ; what Christ thinks^ God thinks ; what Christ says 
or doeS;, God would say and do. He that hath seen 
Him hath seen the Father. 



XXVII. 



SOME BIBLE PROBLEMS. 

THE view of the Bible presented in the last chap- 
ter may clear tip some difficulties about Holy 
Scripture and its interpretation. 

Let us takC;, for example^ the matter of the higher 
criticism of the Bible, which is still a ^T^urning ques- 
tion.^^ There is hardly room to go much into detail 
as to what the historical criticism is, how it may be 
used, how it has been abused. Suffice it to say that 
the higher criticism is so called in contradistinction 
to the lower, or textual, criticism. Textual criticism 
has to do with the text of the Bible ; it collects the dif- 
ferent manuscripts, where there are various readings 
seeks to ascertain which is the correct one, endeavors 
to show the relative value of the different manuscript 
readings, examines ancient translations of the Bible, 
or quotations in early Christian authors, and so gives 
us the ^^texf ^ of the sacred Scriptures. 

All this is called the lower criticism because it 
has to do with the bare text of the Bible, the mere 
groundwork, while the higher criticism has to do 



222 THE RELIGION OF THE INCAENATIOlSr. 



with the spirit of the writing itself^ and is therefore 
higher in its order and work. The higher criticism 
devotes its attentions to such matters as the integrity 
and authenticity of the sacred writings^ the style of 
the various authors^ their methods of work^ the 
sources of their information^ what human influences 
were exerted upon them^ how their work compares 
with that of other writers, what principles dom- 
inated them. 

It will be seen at once that this sort of criticism, 
if reverently done, will shed much light on the litera- 
ture of the Bible, just as similar studies have helped 
to a fuller appreciation of the writings of great au- 
thors of secular literature, Shakespeare for example. 
But as there are Ignatius Connellys in Shake- 
spearean criticism, so there are men of like startling 
tj^pe in Biblical criticism, whose work is done in a 
spirit of defiant antagonism to traditional views. 
Such men often give us wild theorizing and irrev- 
erent speculation, and some of them have carried 
their destructive methods so far as to destroy com- 
pletely the religious value of the Bible for those who 
agree with their position. 

The work of hostile critics of this type need not, 
however, blind us to the value of the higher criticism 
in general or to the debt we owe to men of a more 
reverent and spiritual school whose work may prove 
helpful often, even to many who have not yet been 
able to accept their conclusions. And, at any rate, 
the question can surely have no terrors for those who 
have the larger view of the Bible as just presented 



SOME BIBLE PEOBLEMS. 



223 



and who read its pages^ with the same idea in their 
minds that filled the minds of its writers — read it, 
that is, to find God and be found of Him. Snch will 
see that, whoever wrote its earlier books and however 
ignorant they may have been about some things that 
we know, they had gained something which we can 
never have except by their guidance. 

It is when we read the Bible in this way that our 
own experience convinces us of its divine origin. 
Eead only for critical study, the Bible does not yield 
up its spiritual treasures ; but read however critically, 
if yet read prayerfully and devotionally, with the 
earnest desire to know its inner spirit, the Bible is 
seen to be a divine library — a volume that answers 
and corresponds to man so precisely, fully, and satis- 
factorily, in so peculiar, so solitary, so unapproach- 
able a way, that its power cannot be accounted for 
except on the theory that God was the supreme agent 
in its production. 

The Bible finds man — as having intellect, con- 
science, feeling, it ^^finds^^ him; as ignorant, frail, 
dissatisfied; as sinful or sorrowful; as a seeker after 
truth, it ^"^finds^^ him, and ^^finds^^ him in a wholly 
unique and transcendent way. Other religious works 
possess a similar power, some hymns for example, 
such as the Te Deum, the Gloria in Excelsis, or one 
of our modern hymns like "Sun of my SouP^ and 
"Eock of Ages^^; or some devotions, such as the lit- 
any of the Church ; or some book like the "^^Imitation 
of Christ.^^ But in two ways all such compositions 
are immensely inferior to the Bible: first, because 



224 THE RELIGION OF THE UsTCARNATION. 



their power is derivative and second hand, it is not 
original with them, it is but a reflection of the Bible's 
creative power, as the moon is a reflection of the 
light of the snn; and secondly, because however 
stirring, subduing, or exalting such works may be, 
they do not *^^find'' us so deeply, exhaustively, or 
perennially as does the Bible. 

Were we to read the Scriptures more, then, we 
should have fewer doubts about their value. The 
witness of our own experience would be an invaluable 
comfort and support in the presence of plausible 
hostile criticism. To one who has proved it for him- 
self no criticism can touch the question of the Bible's 
divinity. It may change our human theories, but it 
can never change the fact which our theories but 
seek to explain. 

One other fact about the Bible should be noticed 
before we close, viz., its relation to the Church as the 
expounder and interpreter of its message. There is a 
fundamental error in the conception of the Bible 
held by many Christian people. They imagine, for 
example, that the 'Sew Testament is given us as a 
sort of compendium of the principles of Christianity, 
and that they have only to turn to it to find every 
doctrine of the faith and every Christian practice 
categorically stated and enjoined. 

As a matter of fact, however, the Xew Testament 
was not written to give men their first knowledge of 
Christ and His teaching; it was written for those 
who had already received instruction in the funda- 
mentals of the faith, and instead of the direct and 



SOME BIBLE PROBLEMS. 



225 



categorical statement of the main facts of the Christ- 
ian creeds we rather have indirect allusions to them 
as to things already well known and generally ac- 
cepted. Even the Gospels do not give a first knowl- 
edge of onr Lord^s life. By word of mouth and by 
the circulation of fragmentary written records^ most 
of the events of Christ^s life and the principal truths 
about His person and His teaching had been learned ; 
and the gospels are, as with St. Matthew and St. 
Mark, memoirs of the Master^s life; or, as with St. 
Luke, a more carefully arranged and detailed state- 
ment of the facts, to teach the disciples the certainty 
of those things wherein they had already been in- 
structed; or, in the case of St. John^s Gospel, a sup- 
plementary record written to show the growth of an 
Apostle^s faith in the divinity of Christ. 

So with the other books of the New Testament, 
the Epistles for example. Those to whom these apos- 
tolic letters are written are evidently men who know 
already the substance of the faith; they have been 
taught orally about the life and doctrine of Jesus, 
about the Church and her sacraments, about their 
own moral duties, about the atonement, the resurrec- 
tion, the ascension, and the life of the world to come ; 
and the purpose of the Biblical writings is to explain 
things they have forgotten or misunderstood and to 
correct erroneous doctrine and the practices arising 
therefrom. St. Paul, to take an instance, wrote to 
the Thessalonians to clear away current misunder- 
standings about the second coming of our Lord, not 
to give them their first information about that future 



226 THE EELIGION OF THE INCAENATION. 



advent ; he wrote to the Corinthians, not to tell them 
for the first time about the resnrreetion, but to point 
out the errors of those who disbelieved or misinter- 
preted that great fact ; he wrote to the Colossians, not 
to lay down the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, 
but to show them that their own knowledge of it 
should have kept them from serious errors of conduct 
into which they were falling. 

This is what makes the Bible by itself so difficult 
to understand. If we wish to know its teaching we 
cannot turn to its pages and there find a direct, plain, 
simple statement of fact or doctrine; we must turn 
to the history of the time, study the tradition of the 
Church, and with this as a background all will fall 
naturally into place and be readily susceptible of 
understanding. It would be very difficult, for in- 
stance, to prove from the Bible the need of Infant 
Baptism, or the observance of Sunday, or the char- 
acter of the Christian ministry, or a dozen other 
things that might be mentioned. But when we study 
Christian tradition and discover that the early 
Church believed and practiced these things, a dozen 
or more Bible references come up at once, proving 
by their indirect allusion the traditional view, and 
themselves incapable of satisfactory explanation un- 
less that tradition be assumed as furnishing the set- 
ting of the Scripture language. 

By the authority of the Church as the interpreter 
of the Bible we mean, then, that in reading God^s 
Word we must be guided by the Church's tradition, 
her creeds and her conciliar decrees. The Bible is a 



SOME BIBLE PROBLEMS. 



227 



difl&cult book to study; we need help in reading it, 
and the Church gives ns that aid. 

Suppose some young students were studying the 
philosophy of Kant or Herbert Spencer. It would be 
of great assistance to them if they had a teacher to 
summarize for them the principles enunciated in the 
various works of these great authors ; it would be of 
greater help if they had an authoritative interpreta- 
tion of certain difficult passages. Now, the Bible is 
deeper, more profound, than any human writings, 
and in the decrees of the Church we have an authori- 
tative interpretation of its contents. In the decisions 
of the undisputed general councils, we have the opin- 
ions of those who came immediately after the time 
of Christ and His Apostles, as to what the Bible 
teaching means; not, it will be observed, their per- 
sonal opinions of what the truth was, but their state- 
ment of what the Church had always understood to 
be the meaning of the sacred writers — an opinion 
as valuable as would be, for example, a letter from 
an intimate friend of the poet Browning, who had 
long known him and from conversations with him 
could tell what this or that passage in one of his 
poems meant. 

In the creeds of the undivided Church we have 
an authoritative summary of the Bible. We are told : 
This is what the Church has taught. You will find a 
fuller explanation of each article in the Bible, which 
records the original statement of the truth by Christ, 
or the interpretation of it by His followers^ who were, 
after all, but members of the Church, explaining her 



228 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 

teaching. Start with this teaching, ponder it; then 
read the Scriptures and find from careful study of 
their pages that the teaching is true. 

In other words, we believe that the Church gave 
us the Bible — there was a Church organized, and 
teaching in the world before the Bible was written — 
and the Church is best able to interpret the Book 
she has given us. 

This is very different from the popular evan- 
gelical statement that ^^the Bible and the Bible only 
is the religion of Protestants.^^ We see what that 
theory results in : Every denomination finding a dif- 
ferent faith and system, as each reads the Scriptures 
from a different point of view ; different people going 
to the Bible to pick out what pleases them, or what 
fits in with their theories, and forgetting things of a 
different character that affect, qualify, and explain 
what they have accepted. No one is wise enough to 
choose out of the Bible even what is most necessary ; 
and we shall best read its pages if we take the sum- 
mary of its teaching which the Church gives us in 
her creeds or in the decrees of her councils, and then 
study the Bible with these as a kind of syllabus, a 
sort of working hypothesis, which our further read- 
ing will prove, amplify, and explain. Otherwise we 
are like children at a feast, picking out the sweet 
things we fancy, and leaving the rest, to our hurt and 
through our own fault. 



XXVIII. 



THE CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

THEEE is one great hunger of the soul, one pas- 
sionate yearning^ which it longs to have satis- 
fied : to know of a certainty whether there is a future 
life ; to look out beyond the present and see what lies 
on the other side of the grave. Death is something 
we must all face ; we draw nearer to it every day ; it 
is inevitable for each of us. And there is hardly any 
of us whom it has not already closely touched : some 
friend or relative it has taken from us^ some one 
whom we have loved long since and lost — is it only 
for a while? shall we meet these dear ones again? 
or have we loved them for a day, to know them no 
more ? And there is sorrow in the world, too : pov- 
erty, sickness, suffering, injustice, misery of every 
kind ; we meet with it ourselves, we see it in others. 
Is there another life, where all this is to be remedied ? 

Yes — this is the souVs deepest yearning — ^to 
hnoiv about these things. Our very faith in the 
existence of God hangs on the answer ; for if all that 
is unsatisfactory in life is not to be made perfect 



230 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



hereafter^ how can ttg still trust in a God of love? 
If we have loved and labored for others to no pur- 
pose^ only to have the heart torn and wounded at 
last by separation^ what a cheerless^, hopeless world 
this is ! 

Is there^ then^ another world ? is there an endless 
life ? or is the grave our only goal ? How men have 
wrestled with that problem ! How they have rea- 
soned^ and weighed probabilities^ and wrung hints 
from nature^ and forced longings into opinions^ and 
tried to turn opinions into convictions^ and yet they 
have not really known ! 

Outside of Christy we never can know. One often 
thinks of the testimony of nature : the morning suc- 
ceeds the night; the spring time follows the winter; 
the blade comes up from the buried seed ; these illus- 
trate a faith in the future life; but of themselves 
they prove nothing. JsTor does our human reason 
give any positive answer; hopes only are offered^ rea- 
sonable hopes — but we want more than a hope^. we 
want certainty. 

That certainty we have in Christ J esus. ^^'Now is 
Christ risen from the dead'^ is the way St. Paul sums 
up the apostolic message. There can be no doubt 
about it. ^^He was seen of Cephas^ then of the 
Twelve; after that^ He was seen of above five hundred 
brethren at once; after that, He was seen of James; 
then of all the Apostles. And last of all He was seen 
of me also.^^ And so I Tcnoiv, the Apostle seems to 
say; I do not argue, I state facts. ^^Now is Christ 
risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of 



THE CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 231 



them that slept/^ I know that death is not the end 
of all things ; it is the beginning of a new and perfect 
life. I am sure of the existence of the world to come ; 
I know that there will be found endless perfection of 
beings that there all the sickness and suffering and 
sorrow of this world will be done away. I am certain 
that in the land of light there will be the meeting of 
friends again^ the knitting together of the old love. 
I know it^ because I know that Christ my Lord rose 
from the dead^ and because I know that His resurrec- 
tion is not a separate and isolated events it is the 
pledge of ours. He became man^ lived our life^ died 
as we die^ was buried^ rose again in His human na- 
ture^, and in that nature ascended and sitteth on the 
right hand of the Father. Because He lived and died 
and rose as man^ all men shall rise as He did. He is 
the first fruits of them that sleep. As the wave offer- 
ing of the first grain of the harvest is the pledge and 
sign of all the crop that is yet to be ingathered^ so the 
resurrection of Christ is the assurance that we^ too, 
shall rise, and live in Him. 

The Christian, then, is absolutely sure of this 
about which other men can at most but be hopeful. 
We do not have to reason out our belief; we believe 
because we have a certain testimony. Those early 
disciples were witnesses who had seen and handled; 
we feel that men who spoke and acted as these did 
could not have been mistaken; we know that such 
wonderful works as they wrought could not have been 
done by deluded, fanatical enthusiasts; we see, after 
all these centuries, that no such mighty influence as 



232 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARNATION. 



that of the Christian Church could have had its 
origin^ say in the easily exploded dream of an imag- 
inative woman. Its wonderful power is proof of its 
foundation in substantial reality. So^ then^ we do 
not reason about the life to come; we know. Merely 
^^to speculate about a future life seems a terrible 
trifling with human hearts. Those who feel their 
hearts bound up now as much as ever with the hearts 
of those who are entered into rest cannot argue about 
immortality. That is a frightful insult to a heart 
that bleeds at the thought of what it has lost. The 
Church does not argue. To those who are hungry to 
know their dead again^ she has no controversy^ no 
syllogisms^ no hair drawn arguments^, no fine spun 
probabilities.''*^ She points to her Lord^ who rose 
from the grave^ appeared among His disciples^ tar- 
ried with them forty days instructing them in the 
affairs of His Kingdom^ and then ^Vhile they beheld 
was taken up^ and a cloud received Him out of their 
sight.'' ^\e need to be reasonably assured of the fact 
of Christ's resurrection^ and we do believe that it is 
as certainly and undeniabh' established as any event 
ever recorded in history ; but being sure of that there 
are for us no more arguments. AYhen we know this^, 
we know all the rest. 

Yet there is one more question : Suppose there is 
a future life : shall we enjoy it? shall we be fitted for 
it? You and I — we are sinful; we know our utter 
unworthiness : how can we ever enter upon the life 
of eternity in the presence of God? "We to whom 

*9 Tunis : "Tlie Faith by Wliich We Stand." 



THE CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 233 

prayer is so hard^ who with difficulty fix the mind 
for a few moments on heavenly things ; we who find 
devotion a task^ meditation almost an impossibility — 
how shall lue be made ready for a life of unending 
worship and adoration ? We who are so full of faults, 
who have so many failings and shortcomings, whose 
hearts are so easily filled with anger or resentment, 
who are so often jealous or envious or discontented, 
who are so quickly offended, so ready to find fault; 
we who live in the world and are too readily satisfied 
with its lower standards, who often think more of 
earthly success than of the heavenly riches, who work 
and plan for self, with so little thought of others; 
we who have, so many of us, been guilty of grosser 
sins that sap the spiritual energies and leave the 
mind a prey to evil thoughts — how shall we ever be- 
come possessors of everlasting life, though we know 
there is such a life ? 

The answer lies in the remembrance that He who 
rose and ascended was victor not only over death but 
over sin. He for whose glorious resurrection we 
praise God at Eastertide is ^^the very Paschal Lamb 
that was offered for us, and hath taken away the sin 
of the world ; who by His death hath destroyed death, 
and by His rising again hath restored to us everlast- 
ing life/^ He lived our life — lived it in perfect 
obedience — offered the sacrifice that we could not 
offer ourselves and reconciled us to God ; He left, too^ 
a fountain for sin and for uncleanness; He gave us 
the germ of a higher and better life, which begins to 
develop in us here and now, if we but accept His 



234 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



sacrifice, use His grace and seek to live in His spirit 
— and the good work vrliicli He hath begun in us will 
continue hereafter in never ending advancement 
until at last ve wake up after His likeness and are 
satisfied. He gives iis the assurance of heaven here- 
after : but He does even more than that. He leads the 
way to it. and pledges iis His help on the journey. 

Oh. the inspiration of it ! Life has for us a new 
meaning, work has a new incentive, when we know 
that there is something to hope for. something to 
press forward to ; that the prize is surely there to be 
won. To be assured that the struggle will issue in 
triumph — that gives spring and cheer in the midst 
of the contest. Though I fail here. I must keep up 
my courage, some day I shall succeed: though I 
falter, then I shall be firm : though I fall. I need not 
lose hope, for if I press on I shall at last stand stead- 
fast : I shall have life. but. more than that, in Christ's 
triumph over sin and armed in His strength. I shall 
have victory. He whom I try to follow here has won 
for me and even now helps me. and there I shall find 
Him at last, and rest in the perfect peace that suc- 
ceeds the strife and battle. 



XXIX. 



THE PROOF OF THE RESURRECTION. 

IP Jesus Christ rose from the dead^ then we are 
absolutely certain of the life of the world to come. 
But did Christ rise? What are the grounds of our 
belief in that stupendous miracle? 

In seeking for a practical^ common-sense proof of 
the resurrection of Jesus Christy let us first of all 
settle one thing definitely. This Jesus lived and 
died. There was such a Person. Whatever opinion 
one might hold of the inspiration of Scripture^ or 
even of the genuineness of the Gospels^ one cannot 
think that everything told of Christ is pure imagina- 
tion; the story of His life and death is not fictitious 
in its entirety. Such a Person did live^, and He 
did die. 

Well, then, let us start from this point. ^^He was 
crucified, dead, and buried.^^ It is very important 
to settle that fact definitely. He died after a public 
execution, and was buried in a well-known tomb. 
And then almost immediately His disciples began to 
assert that He had risen from the dead. We need not 



236 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIO^^ 



trouble to examine in detail their accounts of the 
resurrection; it is enongh for our present purpose to 
state the general fact that the Apostles did assert in 
plain and straightforward language that their Mas- 
ter had risen : they proclaimed this far and wide, and 
declared it with such positive conviction that many 
believed what they said. Christ died then, and was 
buried, and His disciples claimed that He had risen 
again and appeared among them. There is no dis- 
puting this general statement. 

Xow if the Apostles asserted positively that their 
Lord had risen from the grave, and if what they said 
was not true, why was it not the simplest matter in 
the world to disprove their statements by producing 
the dead body? Was it not in the tomb, and if not. 
where was it. and how had it disappeared? 

Unbelievers have two theories by which to answer 
this question: (1) the theft theory, and (2) the 
theory of resuscitation after a swoon. According to 
the first, the disciples stole the body. This argument 
has been generally abandoned in our day, it is so 
manifestly inconsistent with the character of the 
Apostles. Allowing for a moment that they could 
have stolen the body — though the tomb was guarded, 
and they were panic-stricken, weak, terrified, hud- 
dled together in an upper room with the doors locked 
— allowing that they could, can we possibly suppose 
that they icoiiJd have done it? Their well known 
character, their transparent honesty and sincerity, is 
sufficient proof to the contrary. We cannot for a 
moment believe that the men who first preached the 



THE PROOF OF THE RESURRECTION. 237 

gospel were conscious deceivers. One can conceive 
of their being mistaken^ but to suppose that they 
were deliberate impostors is inconceivable. And yet 
the theft theory was made necessary by the fact of 
the death and burial and the subsequent disappear- 
ance of the body. This^ evidently, was gone, or it 
would have been produced, to the evident confusion 
of the Apostles. 

Then there is the second theory. According to 
this, Christ did not die; He merely swooned from 
exhaustion, and when laid in the tomb revived, es- 
caped, and appeared to His disciples. Afterward, He 
recovered from His wounds, and His credulous fol- 
lowers mistook His return for a resurrection from 
the dead. 

But there is, first, the well known fact of the 
death, which in the case of a public execution would 
surely have been carefully ascertained and certified. 
There is, again, the difficulty as to how a weak, faint, 
half-dead man could have escaped from the tomb. 
And there is the further consideration that a very 
brief acquaintance with such a man, slowly recover- 
ing from weakness and wounds, would have exploded 
any notion the Apostles may have had of a triumph 
over death, so that they could hardly have continued 
to preach so confidently what sober second thought 
must have convinced them was untrue. Moreover, 
does not this theory make Christ Himself a party to a 
fraud? Surely, even if His return had deceived the 
Apostles, He could not have been deceived, too, or 
could not long have continued so. And if not, could 



238 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



He have allowed them to preach a monstrous mis- 
take? Was He that manner of man? And to look 
forward a little way into the future — how long after 
this did He live ? And how during this time was He 
hidden? And when finally His death came^ how 
were the disciples still deceived ? And what then be- 
came of the body ? Surely those who ask us to accept 
this explanation are putting too much of a burden 
on our plain, every-day common sense. 

The two theories which we have just examined 
are direct attempts to explain the disappearance of 
the body of Christ. They do it by trying to impeach 
the honesty and sincerity of Christ or His Apostles. 
A third theory, however, proceeds on the assumption 
of the absolute integrity of the disciples, but takes 
for granted that they were credulous and self- 
deceived. This, which is the popular modern ex- 
planation of the facts, we may call the vision theory. 
It alleges that the followers of Christ were susceptible 
to any strong wave of emotion, and that in accepting 
the resurrection they were simply victims of an hal- 
lucination. Mary Magdalene, according to this the- 
ory, while in the garden, in an hysterical, over- 
wrought state of mind, thought she saw a vision of 
her Master. She communicated her mistaken idea to 
the Apostles, and they readily caught the frenzy and 
soon fancied that they too saw the risen Christ. 
Then, honestly believing in what was really but the 
fruit of their own excited imagination, they an- 
nounced everywhere that their Lord was alive. Fan- 
atical enthusiasm is contagious, and it was not long 



THE PROOF OF THE RESUREECTION. 239 



before others caught the fever^ and as the belief grew 
the details of the vision became more fixed and defi- 
nite^ till we have the gospel tradition, with its con- 
fusions and contradictions still showing the evidence 
of its origin. 

This is the theory; let us examine it. 

Now, first of all, there is the fact that the Apostles 
were in a condition absolutely unfavorable to the 
origination of ghostly visions. They were depressed 
and discouraged to the point of despair. ^^Such hal- 
lucinations are possible only when suitable mental 
conditions are present, the chief of which are ex- 
pectancy, prepossession, and fixed idea.^^ These were 
all manifestly wanting with the Apostles. 

Again, consider that this is not a question of one 
or two visions to single witnesses, but of a cloud of 
visions to large numbers of people. Eemember, too, 
that these claimed not only to see Christ, but to hear 
Him and touch Him. Moreover, the Apostles^ con- 
viction of the resurrection was beyond parallel full 
of results, and we have but to reflect a moment to 
appreciate the invariable impotency of ghost stories. 
"At first sight there may be some appearance of plau- 
sibility in the assertion that some crazy fanatic mis- 
took a creation of the imagination for a reality, and 
persuaded others of its truth. But that considerable 
numbers of persons should imagine that they saw a 
man alive again after he had been publicly crucified, 
and mistake this for a reality, that they should do 
this on several occasions separately and conjointly, 
and that they should found a great institution on its 



240 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCAEXATIOX. 



basis, is an assertion Tvliicli makes oiir reason stag- 
ger."-^ 

Can we imagine a croicd of men seeing a vision — 
would not some one have broken the illusion? And 
if they spoke to the ghost, can we suppose them hear- 
ing the spectre answer, and all in the same words? 
Or, being alike deceived into this belief, thinking too 
that they had felt him by touch? Or, admitting all 
these absurdities, that on such evidence they could 
have convinced any rational being of such an extraor- 
dinary statement as that a dead man had come to 
life again — most of all, that they could have won over 
hundreds and thousands to the impossible notion? 
And all this when their opponents had only to open 
the tomb and show the dead body, in order to expose 
the absurdity of the claim? 

AVe get back, then, to the fact with which we 
started. Christ really died and His body was pub- 
licly buried. VThere was that body? If still in the 
tomb, a glance at it would have pricked like a bubble 
the emotional frenzy of His disciples. If not in the 
tomb, but in the possession of His enemies, they 
would have seen to it that the illusion was quickly dis- 
pelled in the same practical fashion. If in the cus- 
tody of His friends, how did it get there, and could 
the disillusionizing process have been much longer 
delayed? Xo, the body had disappeared, and the 
reason of its disappearance was that Christ had really 
risen from the dead. 

There is, then, the strongest possible proof of the 

*' Row : "Reasons for Believing in Christianity." 



THE PEOOF OF THE EESUREECTION. 241 

resurrection, apart from the details of the Gospel 
narratives. We protest, however against discounting 
these records. If they be rejected because of appar- 
ent inconsistencies, we reply that in any event of to- 
day half a dozen people might give as many different 
accounts seemingly contradictory yet perfectly ca- 
pable of being reconciled and harmonized by one who 
was thoroughly acquainted with the facts. Or for 
any who doubt the genuineness and authenticity of 
the Gospels, we may point to the witness of St. Paul. 
There are four of his epistles which even by skeptics 
are universally admitted to be genuine, and were 
there no other writings, these four books show con- 
clusively that the Apostles believed in the resurrec- 
tion of their Lord, with all their heart and soul. 

But, as hinted above, most powerful of all the 
arguments for the resurrection are the marvellous 
results that have sprung from it. How shall we ex- 
plain the wonderful transformation of character in 
the Apostles? or the influence of the doctrine on 
other lives? or such a miracle as the conversion of 
St. Paul? Eesults, again, in the Christian institu- 
tions that have survived through 1900 years: What 
shall we say of the celebration of Sunday during all 
these centuries? The day is a weekly memorial of 
the resurrection, and as such has supplanted the old 
Sabbath ; did the change originate in an absurd error ? 
and what contributed to the perpetuation of the 
mistake? What shall be said of Baptism, with the 
constant teaching that we are buried into Christ^s 
death, to be raised into newness of life in Him? 



242 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATION. 



"What of the Holy Comnninion — could it have con- 
tinued as the memorial of a dead friend^ if that 
Friend had not also proved Himself the Lord of life ? 

And what of the Church? Its existence is the 
strongest possible proof of the resurrection of the 
Lord Jesus. Consider ''the utter impossibility of a 
belief in the resurrection having arisen^ spread widely^ 
been accepted without doubt^ and becoming the 
foundation of the Christian Church on any other 
hypothesis than the reality of the fact/*'^^ How^ but 
on the truth of the Lord's triumph over the grave, 
shall we account for the Church? how explain its 
rapid growth out of a state of depressing bewilder- 
ment and despair? or its very organization, in con- 
fidence and enthusiastic assurance after the darkness 
of doubt and disbelief? What shall we say of its 
existence through the ages, if it be not a testimony 
to the truth of this on which all its work and all its 
teaching rested? Can all the Christian life of the 
past nineteen centuries have been based on a delusion 
and a dream? 

Surely not. "We believe in the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ, because nothing less than this great 
miracle can account for all the miraculous results 
that have followed in its train. 

*8 "Reasons for Believing in Christianity." 



XXX. 



THE CONDITION OF THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 

THEEE is hardly any subject of religious thought 
that holds so keen an interest for us as that of 
the condition of the departed. After death — what? 
We must all face death ourselves sometime^ and we 
know not how soon; and^ moreover^ for all of us 
there is the thought of others who have gone before. 
Those friends and dear ones whom we have ^%ved 
long since and lost awhile^^ — where are they now? 
We have some definite idea of the life of the world 
to come, after the great judgment day, when the 
faithful have entered upon their eternal bliss; but 
in the meanwhile, before the time comes when we 
and they shall meet face to face, when if we have 
been faithful we shall be summoned into the presence 
of the Master — in the meanwhile, what of those who 
wait for us on the other side ? Where are they ? what 
is their spiritual condition? They are asleep, we 
are told : is it a sleep of torpor ? or are they conscious ? 
are they active ? are they interested in us ? able to do 
anything for us ? Or can we do anything for them ? 
Do they suffer ? or are they at peace ? 



244 THE RELIGION OF THE IXCARNATION. 



We are the more eager to know tlie answer to these 
questions if we have any trne conception of what 
death is. So often we soothe onr souls with the 
thought that somehow death changes at once the char- 
acter of those we know^ that they are quite different 
now from Avhat they were on earth. Yet we are all 
imperfect^ all to some degree sinful^ and death can- 
not act like a general absolution^ making us ready at 
once for our new life. Xo^ whatever more we may 
learn about death, it is^ first of all^ simply the passage 
from this world^ with all that is so natural and famil- 
iar^ to another worlds unfamiliar^ strange and unac- 
customed^ with sights and sounds new and^ it cannot 
but be^ mysterious and awe-inspiring. Our bodies 
we must leave behind us^ and therefore the soul must 
enter this new abode stripped of all that comes 
through the perception of the senses. What must 
that soul feel^ then^ if it is still conscious^, at being 
ushered at once upon a world of which we know so 
little? 

There is a story in one of Canon Liddon^s won- 
derful sermons that shows the great and solemn 
reality of this change. An Indian officer^ who in 
his time had seen a great deal of service^ and had 
taken part in more than one of those decisive strug- 
gles by which the British authority was finally 
established in the East Indies^ had returned to end 
his days in England, and was talking with his 
friends about the most striking experiences of his 
professional career. They led him^ by their sym- 

^9 ''Advent in St. Paul's," Vol. II. 



THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 245 



pathy and by their questions, to travel in memory 
through a long series of years; and as he described 
skirmishes, battles, sieges, personal encounters, hair- 
breadth escapes, the outbreak of the mutiny and its 
suppression, reverses, victories — all the swift alterna- 
tions of anxiety and hope which a man must know 
who is entrusted with command, and is before the 
enemy — their interest in his story, as was natural, 
became keener and more exacting. At last he paused 
with the observation, ^^I expect to see something 
much more remarkable than anything I have been de- 
scribing/^ As he was some seventy years of age, and 
was understood to have retired from active service, 
his listeners failed to catch his meaning. There was 
a pause ; and then he said, in an undertone, ^^I mean 
the first five minutes after death.^^ 

The phrase showed indeed an appreciation of 
the intense and awful reality of the new life, and 
it will explain why questions about the present 
state of the departed have so pressing an inter- 
est. We and all these others are to stand some 
day at God^s judgment throne, and we hope and pray 
that the voice will sound for us, ^^Come, ye blessed 
of My Father.^^ So we hope — but even so, the ques- 
tion remains, what of their state in the meanwhile, 
these who have gone before? They are our dearest 
and our best, and we long to know how they live now 
in this strange country over whose borders they have 
just stepped. What does the Bible tell us of the 
present state of the departed? 

Pirst^ we are told that they are at rest. They 



246 THE RELIGION OF THE INCAENATION. 



are released from the body with its distresses and 
sicknesses^ and so they are freed from the pain and 
distractions that darkened their last hours here. 
Later^ they will be ^^clothed npon^^ with a new body; 
bnt now they are free spirits; and they are at rest^ 
because the sick and tortured frame is put aside till 
the day when soul and body^ both cleansed and sancti- 
fied^ are raised into newness of life. ^^They rest 
from their labors/^ too. The toils and the hardships 
of life no longer oppress them^ for earth^s conflicts 
have ceased. And they are free^ too^ from anxiety 
and care ; they have none of the trials and difficulties 
of this worldly life. There ^"^God shall wipe away 
all tears^^; '^^sorrow and sighing/^ for them^ are no 
more. And^ most of all^ they are at rest because they 
are free from temptation; their probation is over^ 
and the subtle attacks of evil can no longer distress 
them and keep them back from God. 

Already, then^ the faithful departed are at rest. 
We shall see^ later^ that they have not yet entered 
upon the bliss of heaven in the vision of the Blessed 
Trinity^ but for all that they have entered upon a 
spiritual repose. ^^Blessed are the dead who die in 
the Lord: Even so saith the Spirit; for they rest 
from their labors.'^ 

(2) But this rest is not an unconscious sleep. 
^^Certainly the paradise which our Lord promised 
to the dying thief cannot be reasonably imagined to 
be a moral and mental slumber^ a condition no higher 
than that which is produced by chloroform. So^ 
again^ the parable of Dives and Lazarus shows us 



THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 



247 



men in the waiting time after death, f^Uy conscious, 
quickened in thought and feeling, rather than dead- 
ened and stupefied. And such hints of the other life 
as we have in the appearance of Moses and Elijah 
at the Transfiguration, or in the cries of the souls 
under the altar, show us that the blessed dead are far 
from resting in unconscious torpor. 

(3) And not only is the present life of the de- 
parted a conscious existence, it is also a life of intense 
activity. Here we have the experience of our Lord 
Christ Himself as an example of what awaits others 
in their present abiding place. This experience is a 
typical one. Our Lord was true man; He died as 
man ; death meant for Him, as for us, the separation 
of soul and body; and what happened to Him is, we 
may suppose, recorded to show us what will happen 
to others. His body was buried, as ours will be ; but 
while "He was put to death in the flesh,^^ He was 
"quickened in the spirit, in which also He went and 
preached unto the spirits in prison.^^ Afterward 
soul and body were reunited at His resurrection. The 
time between our Lord^s death and His resurrection, 
then, was a time of spiritual activity. The rest of 
death — rest from the toils, trials, and sorrows of 
earth — ^was not incompatible with occupation that ab- 
sorbed the life of the spirit. 

And so, we may imagine, it will be for us. Those 
who rest from their labors here, will not rest in the 
sense that they have nothing to do. For ought we 
know, they also will be "quickened in the spirit^^; 
their life will be a life of intense activity. 



248 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



On what work^ tlien^ are they engaged? Firsts 
their activity will result from their increasing ab- 
sorption in a growing knowledge of spiritual things. 
Before they can enter upon the vision of God^ they 
will have much to learn of Him^ and this waiting 
time will be filled out in the acquiring of a deep and 
thorough knowledge of the All Holy One. Freed 
from the labors of this temporal existence^ their en- 
ergies will be spent in securing such an acquaintance 
of God as was impossible for them in this life. The 
difference between their knowledge of God after 
death and the knowledge they had before^ will cor- 
respond to the increase of knowledge that would come 
to us were we able to see one of our earthly acquaint- 
ances in spirit. ^Ve know them now^ but we read 
the life of the soul only through its bodily mani- 
festation. Suppose we could see a soul unclothed 
— read its thought, know its motives, have its inmost 
emotions unveiled — the increase of real knowledge 
would give some notion of the new knowledge of God 
that will be ours when we are ushered upon the life 
of the spirit. 

Again^ the activity of the soul after death will 
result from the work that it must do for self. As 
they learn more and more of God, so will the departed 
be learning more and more about themselves. All 
their lives will pass before them like a panorama, so 
that they will see the past as a whole, and as in a 
mirror. This knowledge will bring about a desire 
for improvement and growth — and we may be sure, 
therefore, that the souls of the departed will be 



THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 



249 



actively engaged in their own purification and sanc- 
tification^ in preparing themselves for the nearer 
presence of God that will some day be theirs. 

Possibly^ too, their spirits will be laboring actively 
for others. Who knows what share they may have, 
some of them, in helping companions in the middle 
state towards a deeper and richer life? A young 
priest, of pure and unselfish spirit, is suddenly taken 
from earth, when he has hardly yet entered fully upon 
his service for souls. Who knows but in the other 
world, he may be permitted to join in the labor 
which his Lord began, may have been taken that he, 
too, should ^^go and preach unto the spirits in 
prison'^ ? Or who, again, can tell how much the 
prayers of the faithful may work for us who are still 
in our pilgrimage? "^^Quickened in the spirit,^^ may 
not their petitions rise more freely to the throne of 
grace, and may not a devoted wife or mother or hus- 
band or father do more in this new sphere than could 
have been accomplished in life here ? 

(4) That will answer for us the next question, 
^^Are they still interested and concerned about us?^^ 
How can they be otherwise, if they are conscious? 
Surely ^^death does not break up the community of 
interests that are eternal. The living and the dead 
have many things in common; we who are still alive 
and they who have gone before are members of the 
same great family, and the same love stirs in us as 
moved us before our separation in the body. If we 
are interested in them, they must still be interested 
in us, still praying for us, still succoring us in ways 



250 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



that are past finding ont. We are not told how much 
they know of the events of our life^ how much they 
can see of onr daily walk^ bnt they must be able to 
do something for ns still — for^ whether they know 
much or little^ they are not far away^ but very close 
to us. ^^Thej have but passed from one room into 
another in the same building of the Lord ; one and the 
same roof is still over us and them; they are in a 
better^ brighter quarter of the same great Home and 
House of Christy and whatever they are doings what- 
ever they are beholding^ whatever they are enjoying, 
they can never forget us, nor cease to count the hours 
of time till we be with them.^^^*^ 

Because they do so labor and pray for us, it has 
been felt that we may ask the best of them to pray 
for us the more. Some theologians hold that the 
greatest of God^s holy ones, the Blessed Virgin, the 
apostles and martyrs, the patriarchs and prophets, 
may already have passed to the Beatific Vision, but 
whether this be true or not their prayers can avail 
much for us. Why should we not call upon them to 
remember us then, it may be asked. We have no cer- 
tain knowledge that they hear, it is true, but there 
may be means of spiritual communication that we 
do not dream of. At any rate there have always been 
some who have found great help and comfort in thus 
"invoking'^ the prayers of the saints. Our own 
Church has been careful to omit the practice in public 
worship, because of the practical dangers it was found 
to involve ; but in private we may use this help, if we 

Morgan Dix : "The Communion of Saints." 



THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 



251 



find it profitable in the spiritnal life^ provided we 
remember always that we ^^invoke'^ the prayers of the 
saints who are gone before^ just as we would ^^ask^^ 
for the prayers of a good man or woman on earth. 
If we are uncertain that they hear^ however^ it may 
be best to address our requests to God only^ and to 
ask Him that His saints may pray for us and that 
their petitions may be of avail for our help. 

(5) And then, since most of the departed^ at 
leasts are still waiting for their future blessedness^ 
we can do something for them as well as they for us. 
If they are not yet made perfect, and if their present 
life is a condition of growth and continued progress 
in the knowledge of self and of God^ we may strength- 
en our communion with them by praying for their 
increasing advancement in the divine favor and their 
deepening appreciation of the divine love. They do 
not need our prayers in the same way as do others 
who are still in their earthly probation; nor do we 
know their needs as we know those of our earthly 
companions ; yet we may freely ask for them what- 
ever may be necessary for their progress, feeling even 
that they may in a measure depend on our petitions 
just as those in this world need our prayers and la- 
bors. We pour out our hearts in prayer for the 
dead, then, and thus realize our unbroken fellowship 
with them. For thousands of years such prayers 
have been used by Christians, and they are found in 
every liturgy of the ancient Church. Hundreds of 
years before Christ they were in use among the 
Israelites. As they formed a part of the worship of 



252 THE EELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



the SynagogTie^ our Lord Himself^ and His apostles^ 
must have used them : at any rate He speaks no word 
in condemnation of the cnstom. 

It is safe^ then^ for ns to follow the same practice^ 
and to make more real onr remembrance of the de- 
parted by praying for them. With St. Paul, we 
may ask for them ''mercy in that day,** with the 
ancient Church we may ask that they be granted 
eternal rest and that light perpetual may shine upon 
them. Our connection with them has not ceased^ 
and until we and they alike have our perfect con- 
summation and bliss, both in body and soul^ they may 
need our prayers as we need theirs^ though ours for 
them must necessarily be less definite and jDarticular^ 
because we know so little of their special needs. 
Thus in memorials of those Avho have lived and died 
in the Lord, in loving jorayers for their happy pro- 
gress, we shall remain in closer communion with 
them until we who are now in the burden and heat of 
the dav join them in the rest of paradise. In that 
hour of death, and in the day of judgment^ by Thy 
cross and passion^ Good Lord, deliver us ! 



XXXL 



THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

IN the last paper it was assumed that men do not 
go at once;, after death^ to their final abiding 
place^ but that there is an intermediate state, where 
even the most faithful of the departed must wait 
until they are made ready for fulness of life in God^s 
presence. It may be well, perhaps, to go over the 
subject again to show why we believe this. 

It has been taken for granted by some who do not 
accept this teaching, that, since it postpones the day 
of complete blessedness for the departed, it must de- 
tract in some measure from our Christian consolation 
in the hour of death. If we examine the subject 
more closely, however, we shall see that the Church 
view, far from taking away our confidence and cer- 
tain hope when we are called upon to part with loved 
ones, is really, in numberless cases, full of the great- 
est possible comfort. As a matter of fact, must not 
those who think that after death the righteous soul 
goes at once to heaven, be staggered at tracing this 
idea to its logical negative, and contemplating the 



254 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



fate of those who cannot without great straining of 
language be numbered among the faithful ? 

For^ after all^ what sort of people are the great 
majority of those at whose graves we say the final 
prayers of committal? How few of them^ even on 
the mo&t charitable view of the case^ can be thought 
of as in any degree fit for heaven ! Weak^ wavering, 
sinful souls many of them were, having some good 
qualities, it is true, but very imperfect and very un- 
worthy to enter into the presence of their Creator. 
Such goodness as they have is rather in germ, often 
wholly undeveloped and incomplete. They are not 
among those who have wilfully and absolutely re- 
jected God (though perhaps some of them have come 
perilously near it), and so we trust they are not 
among the finally impenitent, or lost; but if the 
choice must be made then and there, in their present 
state, apart from the hope of future development 
and progress in holiness, who could say that there was 
much hope of heaven for them? 

And then that multitude of souls who have never 
had our Lord and His redemptive work properly 
presented to them, the heathen, the dwellers in the 
slums of a great city, the ignorant and uninstructed 
everywhere — what about them? If there is no 
chance that somewhere they may be subjected to a 
purifying process, and developed in the life of grace, 
we can have little hope. But if it is believed that 
there is such a place and such a hope, then perhaps 
God will accept them, since they have never delib- 
erately and absolutely rejected Him, because He 



THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 



255 



finds in them at least the beginnings of goodness^ 
seed that is undeveloped;, but that may grow, in 
another field, under the watchful care of His saints 
and angels. If, though, they must enter at once 
into life, or else be reserved for death, could our 
hope be as strong or our hearts as free to trust that 
all will be well ? 

It is the contemplation of such thoughts as these 
that sometimes leads those who have been brought up 
under the ordinary Protestant influence, to revolt 
from what they erroneously believe to be the orthodox 
doctrine of the judgment. Seeing how few there are 
for whom we may have any reasonable hope of an im- 
mediate entrance into heaven, and yet shrinking from 
"the consignment of such imperfect souls to Satan, 
they have been led to provide a merciful solution 
of the problem by denying altogether the doctrine of 
everlasting punishment, or resting in the hope that 
for such as these there is another probation after 
death. In the next chapter we shall consider the doc- 
trine of eternal punishment and see how little logic 
there is in rejecting it if we yet hold to a belief in 
the divine knowledge of our Lord Christ, who appar- 
ently asserts its awful reality. As for the other 
solution — a probation after death — the doctrine of 
the Intermediate State solves the difficulty without 
resorting to any such uncertain theory. 

The Bible, as interpreted by the Church, would 
seem to show that probation ends with death ; we are 
constantly taught that this period of our earthly life 
is our time of trial and testing, and that there is no 



256 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



other. And^ indeed^ to suppose that men in some 
future state might change from a life predominantly 
evil to one that is good^ would imply that others 
might be in danger of changing from good to evil — 
and death would have greater terrors for ns than now. 
Quite different is the doctrine of the Intermediate 
State^ yet quite as comforting for those who fear for 
themselves or their friends. For if we accept this 
doctrine^ we believe that God^ in His goodness^ ac- 
cepts the soul at death not for what it actually has 
become but for what it ivill become^ not because it is 
developed in goodness^ but because the seeds of good- 
ness are there and are not so choked by the evil as 
to be incapable of growth. So^ as we stand at the 
grave of some weak brother whose life wavered so 
uncertainly between right and wrongs we may have 
fresh hope; we may believe that when he departed 
this life he was (taking things at large and on the 
whole) upon the right side. There was more of good 
than evil in him; his tendency was upward^ rather 
than downward; and though he was very imperfect^ 
God mercifully took him as he was^ to develop the 
good in him^ till he should be prepared for the 
eternal life. This does not mean that he is to have 
a second probation^ but that^ taking it all in all^ he 
stood his probation here^ and that now in a place of 
preparation the evil is gradually to be purged away 
so that he may be made fit for heaven. So^ those 
who have never heard the gospel^ or to whom it has 
never been preached aright^ or whose environment 
has made it impossible that they should have ears to 



THE INTEKMEDIATE STATE. 257 



hear it — such are judged according to the light they 
had^ and theV;, too^ need no new probation^ only the 
carrying on and developing of what such probation 
as they had has made them here. 

And^ indeed^ of heaven we are not told that it 
will be one dead level of happiness — there may be 
degrees of blessedness. In the Father's house are 
many mansions^ and some of these may be the final 
abode of the most saintly^ some the abode of those 
who never attained such heights of holiness. Allow- 
ing for all that^ and believing that in the Interme- 
diate State each soul is preparing for its own place 
in the heavenly mansions^ we may have hope for 
many of whom we should otherwise despair. 

It may be urged that such arguments lead to an 
easy-going attitude towards sin^ and encourage men 
in carelessness and indifference of living; but the 
experience of those who have put much stress on it in 
their teaching is the very opposite. Eather^ it gives 
men hope^ and arouses a greater perseverance in some 
who might otherwise despair. Instead of despond- 
ently giving up the struggle^ they take fresh courage ; 
they know they are not saints^ but they have in this 
teaching a new incentive to make the best they can 
of the remaining years of life^ even though obliged to 
battle continually against old habits and besetting 
sins. 

Perhaps it would have been well^ before saying all 
this^ if we had stated as briefly as possible our grounds 
for believing in the Intermediate State. The argu- 
ments in reason have already been shown by iniplica- 



258 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATIOX. 



tion. viz., that even those who die in grace^ however 
holy their lives may have been, are by no means pre- 
pared to enter at once upon the joys of the heavenly 
life and rest in the perpetual contemplation of the 
Ever-blessed Triune God: they need to be purged 
most thoroughly from the sins that defiled iheir souls 
during life, they need much progress in holiness^ be- 
fore they can enter the divine presence. 

As to the evidence of Scripture^ St. Paul has 
several passages which imply the thought. TVe need 
not dwell upon these, however, since our own reason 
tells us that before we enter into glory we must^ of 
necessity, dwell for a time in some place of purifica- 
tion, waiting till our souls have been purified and 
made fit for the Master. 

There are several Scripture passages, however^ 
which we can hardly pass over. For example: On 
the cross, a moment before his death, the penitent 
thief pleaded for mercy, and our Lord answered him, 
^*To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.'' Did 
He mean that the thief was to go at once to heaven? 
In the first place, our Lord Himself did not ascend 
thither until more than forty days later: in the sec- 
ond place, that one act of penitence, though it 
brought the sinner pardon, did not prepare him to 
enter immediately the inner presence chamber of 
God's house. ^'To-day shalt thou be with Me in 
paradise'* evidently therefore refers to his presence 
with Christ in some intermediate abode of the blessed 
dead. 

So of our Lord Himself an experience is related 



THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 259 



that bears on the question. Being perfect man^ 
Christ went through all that happens to men at their 
death. His Body was bnried; His hnman Soul went 
to some waiting place of the departed; on Easter 
morning His Soul and Body were reunited^ and He 
arose and appeared among men^ bringing them a 
pledge and token that their souls and bodies would be 
reunited and that they would rise too. St. Peter 
tells us that;, put to death in the fleshy He revived in 
spirit^ i.e. J in the soul as contrasted with the body^ 
and in the spirit He went to the place of departed 
spirits^, the souls in safe custody^, and to them pro- 
claimed the glad tidings of redemption. Even after 
He had risen from the grave He did not go at once 
to heaven^ but said of Himself^ "I am not yet 
ascended unto My Pather.^^ 

What our Lord tells us^ moreover^ in the parable 
of the rich man and Lazarus^, shows us that the right- 
eous, immediately after deaths go^ not to heaven, 
but to some temporary resting place. Lazarus re- 
poses in ^'^Abraham^s bosom^^ until the general day 
of judgment — which has not yet come, since the rich 
man speaks of his brethren as still in their earthly 
probation. 

The thought of the Intermediate State (or par- 
adise, or purgatory, if one prefers to call it either) 
will show us why the Church has always believed in 
the efficacy of prayers for the dead. The life after 
death is a time of further discipline and progress, 
where those who are saved are subjected to some puri- 
fying process, to prepare them for heaven. For this, 



260 THE EELIGIOX OF THE INCARNATION. 



then, our prayers may help them. Any petitions we 
make conlcl not aid them were they lost ; such prayers 
they no longer need as a stay against temptation; 
but they may need them^ and we have every reason to 
believe will be helped by them^ in the way of advanc- 
ing their spiritual growth and development. It is 
for such purj)oses that our prayers are offered for 
those who are gone before — that they may have lights 
peace^ rest^, refreshment^ growth in the divine favor^ 
increasing knowledge of the divine love. ^'^Grant 
them. Lord^ eternal rest^ and let light perpetual 
shine ujoon them.'' And because in measure all men 
die with something yet to be done for their souls^ 
with some light still needed^ with something of spir- 
itual progress necessary^ therefore for all men prayers 
after death^ somewhat vague and indefinite as they 
must be^ will yet accomplish good^ and will bring 
aid and succor there^ as they give it here. He who 
began a good vrork in us not only carries it on during 
this earthly life, but will continue it until the great 
day^ '^'^the day of Jesus Christ.'^ It cannot be un- 
availing to offer our prayers in aid of this good work^ 
and to omit to do so would be ^^to imply that all con- 
nection between the departed and ourselves had 
ceased^ than which nothing could be more untrue.^^ 



XXXII. 



HEAVEI!^ AND HELL. 

THE doctrine of the Intermediate State gives us 
hope for many weak and undeveloped souls. 
Though they accomplished comparatively little in 
the way of Christian holiness here^ their lives have 
tended in the right direction ; their characters are suf- 
ficiently determined to show that the good predom- 
inates over the bad^ and so they are accepted for what 
they are becoming, and in the quickened life of the 
spirit, after death, they will advance in holiness and 
be prepared for the vision of God. 

There are some, however, of whom we cannot 
hope that they will ever be made ready for heaven. 
There seems, at death, to be no spark of goodness in 
them bright enough to allow us to expect that it can 
be fanned into a flame. It is hard to say it, but in the 
face of all that we see of some whose lives are steeped 
in wickedness we cannot escape the conviction that 
for them entrance into the Divine Presence is im- 
possible. We shun so to decide in any individual case, 
/ind so long as life remains we continue always to 



262 THE RELIGION OF THE INCAE^tATION. 



hope; but there are some, apparently, in whom all 
good is extingnished. So, then, we can hardly es- 
cape the thought of hell, a place of punishment for 
the wicked. 

If it be asked how we reconcile the existence of 
such a place or state of everlasting punishment with 
belief in the goodness of God, we answer that there 
are many things which we cannot expect to under- 
stand fully here, and that this is one of them. We 
need not be ashamed to say of this, as of other things, 
'^I do not know.*^ 

One thing, however, we should remember: that 
what we are told of everlasting punishment comes 
from the lips of our Lord Christ Himself. It is not 
in the Old Testament only, with its stern views of 
God^'s justice, that we find the doctrine; it is in His 
teaching also. He to whom we owe all we know of 
a future life, He who showed such tender pity to- 
wards the weakness of men. He taught with the ut- 
most solemnity that a terrible doom was impending 
on sinners. Became they were lost. He came to save 
them, and if in spite of all that He did, there were 
yet some who were hardened against the divine grace 
until good became evil to them and evil good. He 
said that they might be found guilty of a sin such as 
^'^shall not be forgiven either in this world or in the 
world to come.*^ If it was possible for such words 
to fall from the lips of Him who is Love Incarnate, 
it behooves us to approach the subject with humble 
mind. It is a part of the mystery of evil, an out- 
growth of the gift of free will, and our finite minds 



HEAVEN AND HELL. 



263 



are incapable of understanding fully what stretches 
back to the creation and on through eternity. If^ 
however^ the doctrine was not an impossible one to 
Jesus Christy with all His love^ His mercy, His 
purity of soul, it need not be rejected by us, as in- 
compatible with divine love. We should remember 
that our minds are clouded with sin, our hearts sul- 
lied by repeated acts of rebellion against God, and 
that we are hardly capable of deciding for ourselves 
moral issues on which the All Holy One has pro- 
nounced decision. If He could say, in words so 
solemn in their awful self-restraint, "It had been 
good for that man if he had not been born,^^ we must 
believe that in some way a fate so pronounced is quite 
consistent with perfect love and justice. 

We must bear in mind, too, that God cannot be 
charged with the fate of the finally impenitent. He 
"will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the 
knowledge of the truth,^^ and if there are some who 
do perish it will not be for any lack of effort on His 
part to prevent the calamity. All that divine love 
can do to hold back the sinner from his fate, will 
be done, we may be sure. None will be lost whom 
God could save without destroying His own gift of 
free will. In other words, the punishment of the 
lost will be inherent, rather than retributive. In 
the case of a child who obstinately and persistently 
continues in disobedience, a certain alienation re- 
sults which, of itself, is a punishment. The parent 
still loves the child, and still yearns for his return; 
but the child^ by his own wilfulness, cuts himself 



264 THE RELIGIOISr OF THE INCAENATIOISr. 



off from the blessing that might be his and inflicts 
npon himself his own pnnishment. He is wilfully 
in a state of separation^ and his self-inflicted pnnish- 
ment must last so long as this alienation endures. 

l^or are we to confuse the doctrine of eternal 
punishment with theories of men as to who will un- 
dergo this awful fate^ or the number of the lost^ or 
the character of their punislmient. Of all this we 
know but little^ and we are not intended to know 
more^ or it would have been revealed to us. As to the 
punishment of hell;, the present Bishop of Oxford^ Dr. 
Paget;, reminds us that whoever ma}- be in that abode 
of the lost will contain and maintain its dreadful 
secret within himself; and no one will he in hell who 
would not bring hell luith him wherever he ivent. As 
we have just said^ the punishment is inherent and 
self-inflicted. Dr. Paget gives an illustration'^ to 
show something of what hell is. Think^ he says^ of 
a man with a downright bad^ ill-conditioned heart, 
coming home one evening from a place where he has 
been engaged in some vile^ mean^, degrading sin — 
coming home with his mind full of horrid lust and 
suUenness. His wife is waiting for him. She has 
tried to make the room look as bright as she can; 
two of his children are staying up to kiss him and 
say '^Grood-night^^ to him before they go to bed. As 
soon as he opens the door he sees all the love that is 
waiting;, bright and true and tender^ to bid him wel- 
come ; but it only hardens his cruel heart. He hates 
it all for being so unlike himself; hates it for leav- 

51 "Oxford House Papers," first series, chapter viii. 



HEAVEN AND HELL. 



265 



ing him nothing to grumble at; hates it because he 
has no love in him with which to meet it. He scowls 
at the children, and curses his wife, and then sits 
down by the fire to spend his time in sulky silence 
and vile thonghts and stnpid, senseless rage. Who 
is to blame for it? Anyhow, not the wife. Now, 
just imagine a heart settled down utterly and delib- 
erately into such a temper; a heart that has finally 
stamped out of itself all lingering traits or move- 
ments of tenderness; a heart in which there remains 
no faculty, no power of really loving anything at all. 
What can such a heart do, but only go on and on in 
the black despair and misery of perpetual hatred? 
And how can such misery ever have an end? And 
what is this but hell? And who is to blame for it? 
Anyhow, not Almighty God, 

In other words, what God judges and condemns 
is character, No man is rejected because he did this 
or that. His condemnation is based on the fact that 
he has become what he is; and he is not finally lost 
until he has so degenerated that he can never become 
anything else. 

In this we see something of what the final judg- 
ment will be. There is a particular judgment, at 
the hour of death, for each individual, when his or 
her fate is determined; but in the final judgment 
this sentence will be published and made known to 
all men, and so plainly set forth that all will see how 
inevitable was the decree. The last great judgment 
will be the revelation of all of God's purposes from 
the beginning. We shall see that God's hand has 



266 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCAENATION. 



been over all things; ^e shall know vrhj He per- 
mitted evil to exist; we shall understand why He 
judges^ and how; we shall realize His absolute good- 
ness and justice. Even those who are condemned 
may perceive that such a life as theirs could have had 
no other issue. It will be plain, too. that the judg- 
ment must be eternal — for it will be apparent that 
characters are judged, not deeds, that it is not what 
we have done but what we are that makes judgment 
necessary — and what we are we shall always be; 
the condemnation of the wicked will mean simply 
that they are left to themselves to remain as they are 
forever. ^'He that is unjust^ let him be unjust stilly 
and he that is filthy let him be filthy still, and he 
that is righteous let him be righteous still, and he 
that is holy, let him be holy still.'' 

It will be well, however, to let this subject rest in 
the mystery in which it is left by God, and to consider 
rather the comforting doctrine of the certainty of 
heaven, at last, for all who are saved. Here we have 
not space to deal with the subject at length, but only 
to suggest a few thoughts on different aspects of it. 

(1) The first is, as has already been hinted, that 
so far as we know there may be degrees of blessedness 
in heaven, according as we dwell in one or another of 
the ^'many mansions'' in the spiritual realm. We 
shall all be rewarded with the Beatific Vision of the 
Blessed Trinity, but there may well be differing de- 
grees of spiritual insight, and while the reward will 
be the same for each of us who is saved, the capacity 



HEAVEN AND HELL. 



267 



for receiving it may differ according as we have at- 
tained in onr life on earth. 

(2) Again^ as there are differing degrees of 
blessedness^ so there may be different duties and dif- 
ferent stations^ involvings of course^ no separation 
between souls who have known each other here^ but 
allowing manifold opportunities for varied service. 
One will be over five cities^ another over ten^ and 
some will be set on thrones judging^ or governing, 
the twelve tribes of the new Israel. The life of 
heaven will be a life of activity, not of idleness : who 
could possibly conceive of indolence as synonymous 
with happiness ? 

(3) Another thought is, that the chief character- 
istic of the heavenly life will be the absolute con- 
formity of our wills to the will of God. The office 
of His creatures there will be to do His service, and 
since this can be happiness to them only in so far as 
His work is a delight, they must have their desires 
wholly centered in Him, or heaven would not be 
heaven at all. 

This will explain, perhaps, why some could not be 
happy, even if, in spite of their sin, they were per- 
mitted to enter heaven. How could a man who never 
gave one thought to the service of God here, to whom 
the offices of His Church were a tedious task, who 
did not acknowledge His sovereignty or perhaps even 
believe in His existence, whose life was selfish and 
utterly unloving — how could such a man live in 
heaven, even if he were permitted to enter there, 
where the praise and worship and service of the 



268 THE RELIGIOX OF THE INCAENATION. 



Almighty must occaipy every thouglit of tlie heart 
through all eternity ? 

The heavenly life vrill be an absolute conformity 
to the will of God : how much that will explain^ too, 
about life here I In what should our Christian effort 
consist? Xot wholly in the avoidance of sin; nor 
chiefly in seeking some better motive than our own 
interest, but rather in trying to act simply, solely, 
exclusively from a desire to be obedient to the known 
appointment of God. 

Moreover, there is suffering here, sorrow, depriva- 
tion, affliction. May it not be that God sometimes 
makes use of these to help us to subordinate our wills 
to His, teacliing us to say from the heart, ^^Thy will 
be done*' ? AYhen things are hard and life is full of 
heaviness, we are to work on, feeling that God may 
be giving us this trial to test us, that if we succeed 
it will be a stepping stone to higher sonship hereafter, 
knowing that the angels, the saints, our own dear de- 
parted perhaps, God Himself, are looking on us and 
rejoicing that we are running our course well, that 
we are gradu.ally becoming so conformed to what God 
would have us be that our wills are growing into 
unity with His. 

(■i) This will bring up again the Cjuestion of the 
lost. It is sometimes asked how we can ever be happy, 
even in heaven, if we know that any one soul has per- 
ished, and more particularly if any one whom we our- 
selves have known and loved is shut out from the 
Beatific Vision. May we not find the answer in the 
fact that although God loves all souls His love can 



HEAVEN AND HELL. 



269 



find no place of lodgment in such as are given over en- 
tirely to evil^ and that if onr will is in perfect har- 
mony with His^ the same will be true of ns ? For what 
is it; after all^ that arouses lasting afEection ? Is it not 
something of good in the sonl^ and if there is no trace 
of thiS;, nor yet hope of it^ for true love to rest upon^ 
must not love be baffled? If all likeness to God is 
gone, all touch of His goodness lost, will there be 
anything on which a right aJGEection can expend 
itself ? This, at least, may be a hint to the explana- 
tion of what cannot possibly be made absolutely plain. 
At any rate, then we shall see in some measure as 
God sees, we shall know all that is to be known, and 
because at last we understand, no disturbing element 
will mar our perfect happiness. 

Some have sought to alleviate the doctrine of 
eternal punishment by suggesting the possible anni- 
hilation of the finally wicked, or by asserting that the 
ultimate triumph of goodness demands that evil shall 
in the end be converted to God. It is sufficient to say 
that such views can hardly be reconciled with the 
plain letter of Scripture, and that they present prob- 
lems as great as those involved in the thought of eter- 
nal punishment. For the perfect solution of the un- 
doubted difficulties that surround the whole subject 
we must wait till the final consummation of all 
things. 

Then we shall understand; but as yet we know 
but little. We do know, however, all that we need 
for life in the present. Here, as we live day by day, 
deeds are forming habits, and habits are forming 



270 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 

character, and when character becomes fixed our fate 
is determined for all eternity. 'No smallest action of 
onr daily life, therefore, no word, no thought even, is 
insignificant ; each goes to make us what we shall be, 
for weal or woe, forever. And without Thee, God, 
we are unable to please Thee, Let Thy Holy Spirit 
direct and rule our hearts. Let Thy continual pity 
cleanse and defend us. TTithout Thee nothing is 
strong, nothing is holy. Increase and multiply upon 
us Thy mercy, that. Thou being our ruler and guide, 
we may so pass through things temporal, that we 
finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, 
Heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our Lord. 



XXXIIL 



THE ANGELIC WORLD. 

THEEE are few things more remarkable in mod- 
ern science than the way in which some of 
its more recent discoveries have let ns look in, 
back of the visible creation, at the various principles 
that produce the phenomena so long seen and yet 
heretofore so little understood. 

To be told, for example, that the air which 
surrounds us is pervaded by a subtle ether, and that 
this is in continual vibration from waves of light and 
sound, crossing and recrossing each other at innu- 
merable points, till the whole is like a quivering mass 
of jelly; to be told that this ^^ethereal gelatine,^^ so 
to speak, is as solid as adamant ; to be informed that 
it permeates the most solid substances, and that 
through some of these, waves of electricity may pene- 
trate where waves of light cannot — these are things 
which, to be sure, are capable of a certain kind of 
proof, but which most of us have not proved, though 
we accept them as part of our every-day belief. 

Indeed, the whole world is full of mystery. ^^Go 



272 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATIOISr. 



into the fields/^ says Canon MacCoU/'" ^^on a stilly 
sultry day in summer^, when there is not a breath of 
wind to stir the air about you. All J^ature seems 
asleep; the cattle lie slumbering in the shade; the 
birds are silent in the groves; not a leaf flutters in 
the woods; not a blade of grass waves in the meadow; 
there is apparently an entire absence of life and 
movement. But if you had eyes that could penetrate 
through leaf and stem^ through blade of grasS;, and 
soil^ and rock^ and if you had ears that could catch 
the secret harmonies of Nature^ you would be amazed 
at the multitude of sights and sounds that would be 
suddenly revealed to you. You would find that there 
was no stillness at all in the landscape that erstwhile 
appeared to be so fast asleep. There is movement 
everywhere. The tree^ whose leaves droop motionless 
in the noon day heat^ and whose trunk stands erect 
against the sky^ is throbbing with currents of life 
rushing through every pore. A stream of sap is 
coursing between bark and tissue^, and millions of 
vesicles empty themselves every moment through all 
its leaves. There is not a blade of grass in the field 
that is not palpitating with the life that is inces- 
santly circulating through it.^^ 

Why is it^ then^ that we hesitate and draw back 
when we hear something no whit more remarkable 
about the spiritual realm? The Bible tells us that 
as this natural world is so mysterious a thing in its 
quivering activity^ there is also around and above us 
another mysterious life^ a great spirit worlds a heav- 

^2 "Christianity in Relation to Science and Morals." 



THE ANGELIC WORLD. 



273 



enly host of the messengers of God^ ever doing Him 
service, and ever at His command succoring and de- 
fending us in the manifold perplexities of our daily 
work and duty. Surely, if one can accept the revela- 
tions of science with so calm and composed a belief, 
we need not smile in compassionate incredulity when 
another revelation steps in with its wonderful story 
and asks us at least to listen before we turn away to 
scoff. Let us briefly summarize, then, what the Bible 
tells us of this angelic world. 

And, first, we are told that it exists. There can 
be no doubt at all of that in the mind of one who be- 
lieves in the inspiration of Scripture. The Bible is 
full of accounts of angelic beings. They appear to 
the patriarchs of the early J ewish dispensation ; they 
are seen in visions by prophets; one of them brings 
the news of our Lord^s advent to Zacharias and the 
Virgin Mother; they herald our Lord^s birth; they 
succor Him in His temptation and in His agony; 
they roll away the great stone from His grave, 
and afterward guard the empty tomb ; they proclaim 
His resurrection and hover about Him at His ascen- 
sion ; they aid His imprisoned disciples ; they people 
His courts in the heavenly places shown to the seer 
on Patmos. Yes, the angels exist. 

And then we are told something of their mode of 
existence. It is like what our own resurrection life 
is to be, when we shall be as the angels in heaven, 
who neither marry nor are given in marriage. 

The words imply, too, that the angels did not 
come into existence after the same manner of propa- 



274 THE RELIGIOX OF THE IXCARXATION. 



gation as do men; tliey are tlie immediate creation of 
God^ as tlieir name (sons of God) would indicate. 
Godet'^ has pointed out that Tve might expect this 
from what ttc know of life here on earth. For^ first 
we have vegetable life — species without individual- 
itv: then animal life — in which individuality exists^ 
but is over-shadowed by species: then man himself — 
Avhere we find species and individuality again^ but 
now with individuality as the predominant fact. 
And why not. therefore^ the last measure of the equa- 
tion, angelic life, in which there is individuality with- 
out species. In other words, with the angels there is 
no unity of substance, by which all would have kin- 
ship one with another, but each individual stands by 
himself, with no such common ties as bind the human 
race together in a union so strong that we are linked 
with all our fellows by virtue of that nature which 
we all inherit from our first forefather. God created 
an individual man^ and from him the race has de- 
scended in an unbroken line of natural birth; but 
He did not so create the angels; each was made 
directly by the Creator's hand. Therefore^ when the 
first man sinned the whole race fell; but the angels 
do not stand or fall except as individuals. 

The angels, then, exist; and their mode of exist- 
ence is peculiar, in that they are the immediate crea- 
tion of God. each taking life from Him and not exist- 
ing by any secondary and mediate act of propagation. 



53 ''Old Testament Studies." 



THE ANGELIC WORLD. 275 

We have yet to inquire what relations;, if any^, they 
bear to nature and to man. And^ first;, to nature. 

It has been supposed;, from certain passages of 
Scripture^ that the angels were not only the first 
created beings^ but that they form a kind of "^^spirit- 
ual substratum^^ in which^ so to speak^ material 
things were afterward planted. In the Book of Job 
we read that at the creation of the world the morning 
stars sang together, and all the sons of God — the 
angels — -shouted for joy; from which it is inferred 
that before the earth came into existence the angels 
were present, waiting for this new manifestation of 
God's love. It is, of course, impossible to settle any 
theory very definitely from language that is highly 
poetical; but other hints in the Bible certainly lead 
us to the same conclusion, and there seems also a 
special significance in our Lord^s words, recorded by 
St. John, ^^Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and 
the angels of God ascending and descending upon 
the Son of Man,^^ — ascending and then descending: 
as if their home were here on earth, and they left it 
only that, having departed for a time, they might 
return with gifts for us. . They were here before we 
were, here before the world itself was created, here as 
the ideas of things, as it were, the counterparts or 
doubles in the spiritual world of the material things 
in the natural world ; an unseen universe back of this 
visible one, giving this its beauty and at the same 
time having some control over its powers. Pour an- 
gels hold the four winds, in the revelation of St. 
John; another angel has power over the fire; and 



276 THE RELIGION OF THE IXCARNATION. 



everywhere we have a picture of these angelic guard- 
ians^ presiding over nature's forces^ gi^i^g her that 
charm which attracts ns more and more the deeper 
our spiritual life becomes^ and standing in such close 
connection with her that the sacred writers may call 
upon sun and moon^ fire and hail, snow and vapor^ 
through their angelic counterparts^ to praise and 
magnify the Lord. 

And surely there is something inspiring in such 
a view of nature. ^'lYhat/** asks Cardinal Xewman/* 
^Vould be the thoughts of a man who^ when examin- 
ing a flower^ or an herb^ or a pebble^ or a ray of lights 
which he treats as something so beneath him in the 
scale of existence^ suddenly discovered that he was in 
the presence of some powerful being who was hidden 
behind the visible things he was inspecting — who^ 
though concealing his wise hand^ was giving them 
their beauty^ grace^ and perfection^ as being God^s 
instrument for that purpose^ nay whose robe and 
ornaments those objects were*^ — for ^^every breatli of 
air and ray of light, every beautiful prospect^ is^ as 
it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of 
the robes of those whose faces see God.'^ 

We see, then, the relation the angels bear to na- 
ture — how they lie back of the visible world, giving it 
of their radiance and loveliness. Let us look next at 
what Scripture tells us of their relations to men. Of 
the reality of this relationship we are assured by our 
Lord^s own words, when He tells us not to despise the 

5* "Apologia Pro Vita Sua." 



THE ANGELIC WORLD. 



277 



weak and the little ones^ because in heaven their 
angels do always behold the face of the Father^ as 
standing in His immediate presence. 

So we learn that angels^ sent to succor and defend 
ns on earthy give ns their protection (^^He shall give 
His angels charge concerning thee^ to keep thee in all 
thy ways^^) ; they nourish men and minister to their 
wants^ as they did to Elijah when he lay under the 
juniper tree^ and to our Lord in His temptation and 
in the agony of Gethsemane; they bring messages to 
us^ as Gabriel did at the Annunciation^ or as did the 
company who appeared to the shepherds the first 
Christmas night; they assist in our worship: St. 
Paul^ writing to the Corinthians about reverence in 
the services of the Churchy tells them that the angels 
are always near them^, pleased at what is devout and 
fitting^ and grieved at all irreverence and careless- 
ness. 

Whether or not each soul has its particular 
guardian angel, it is clear that these spiritual beings 
take a deep interest in the affairs of men, watching 
over Christ^s little ones and rejoicing over His peni- 
tents. God^s Kingdom embraces angels as well as 
men, and though we are not united to them by the 
ties of nature, the Father has seen good to knit us 
to them by their offices of love in a bond that will be 
even closer hereafter than it is now. Nations also 
seem to have their angelic guardians and advocates, 
such as the "^Trince of Persia^^ and the "Prince of 
Grecia,^^ and perhaps Churches also have their "an- 



278 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



gels/^ though the meaning of the term in connection 
with the seven Chnrches of Asia is not altogether 
clear. It may be that their various duties^ toO;, ac- 
count for gradations of rank among them — angels, 
archangels, etc. — though possibly St. Peter and St. 
Paul, in enumerating these ranks, may be simply 
adopting the language of the heretical teachers whose 
doctrine they are opposing. 

And then, as there are good angels who guard and 
protect us, so there are evil ones, fallen spirits who 
are working against men — spirits who still retain 
much of their old power, and are therefore terrible 
foes in the war they wage with us. "We wrestle not 
against flesh and blood,^^ says St. Paul, ^T3ut against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked- 
ness in high places.^^ At the head of this host of 
fallen spirits is Satan, an archangel who fell through 
pride, carried away others with him, and has now be- 
come the incarnation of evil. It has been supposed 
by some that the title given him by our Lord, '^^the 
Prince of this World,^^ shows that the earth was orig- 
inally intended to be Satan^s own kingdom, and that 
he has therefore a special hatred against men as the 
possessors of his former power. That he did have 
some such dominion seems to be implied in his words 
to our Lord, "'AH this power will I give Thee, and 
the glory of them, for that is delivered to me, and to 
whomsoever I will I give it.^^ 

At the head of the company of the blessed spirits, 
however, is St. Michael, the vanquisher of Satan, and 



THE ANGELIC WORLD. 



279 



leader of the hosts of heaven. His name (Who is 
like unto God?) shows the immeasurable distance 
that separates even the highest of created beings from 
the Creator Himself. Michael is the warrior of God^ 
while Gabriel (God^s hero) is His messenger, the 
heavenly evangelist. Both alike minister to men, 
though in different ways. 

Tried and tempted as we are here, we have then, 
in the thought of this angelic creation, a constant 
reminder that we are not struggling alone. If it is 
hard, sometimes, to realize God^s help and presence, 
we shall find a stimulus to faith in the recollection of 
these princes and champions of the heavenly realm, 
who hover around us, ever ready to do God^s bidding 
on our behalf; for so our spiritual senses will be 
quickened, and from the thought of these His ser- 
vants we shall the sooner rise to the thought of God, 
our ever-present Helper and Defender. We shall the 
more readily, too, rejoice in the great love of God, in 
sending these radiant ones to minister to our com- 
fort — a love so unselfish that He is willing to share 
with others of His creatures our grateful response to 
it, by making them the bearers of His grace, and 
therefore our benefactors. 

And as in thankful love we praise the Giver of 
all this goodness, we shall look forward with deeper 
faith and fuller joy to the day when the bliss now 
given to these holy spirits shall be ours as well, when 
we too shall stand in God^s presence, and with angels 
and archangels and all the company of heaven shall 



280 THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION. 



laud and magnify His glorious name, joining in the 
serapMc hymn, and ever more praising Him, and 
saying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven 
and earth are full of Thy glory : Glory be to Thee, 
Lord Most High/^ 



NOV 24 190^1 



